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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29035566">The Mechanic's Tale</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzieinatizzy/pseuds/izzieinatizzy'>izzieinatizzy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action &amp; Romance, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Humor, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Lots of sarcasm, POV Second Person, Post-Season/Series 02, Reader Needs a Hug, Sassy Reader, Slow Burn, Spoilers, Touch-Starved Din Djarin, din needs a hug, really just two emotionally super big dumb idiots, tags will be added as chapters are, touch-starved reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:48:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>34,969</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29035566</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/izzieinatizzy/pseuds/izzieinatizzy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Did the Mandalorian specify when he would collect his ship?” </p><p>You had two options: one, you could betray him, which would inevitably result in you being hunted, or perhaps a firefight would result between him and New Republic officers in which you wanted no part; two, you could lie on his behalf and inarguably implicate yourself in the protection of a wanted criminal, but it could buy you enough time to leave without a trace for the Outer Rim. You had had good reason for evading the New Republic for as long as you had, and you would rather tangle with petty criminals than answer for the life you had led thus far. Better the devil you know...</p><p>“No.”</p><p>...than the devil you don’t.</p><p>-</p><p>You're a drifter mechanic who's spent most of her life trying to stay under the radar, but when Mando needs his ship repaired, your paths inevitably cross and all hell breaks loose.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s), Din Djarin/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>121</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. The Fixer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi there! This is my first attempt at writing Star Wars fan-fiction, and also first-time publication of any of my work! I've written for many years, but I got this story in my head and couldn't help myself once I started. I've tried to keep it about as consistent as possible with canon, as this story follows directly from the end of Season 2 of The Mandalorian. I will also try to update once a week (more than likely on weekends). Enjoy, and leave a comment/kudos below if you do! :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ganthel was not an appealing locale by any stretch of the imagination. Painted in hues of steel and dark clay, it was an overgrown forest of corrugated hangars and skyscraper-tall equipment through which graveled paths twisted and turned. Most of the population made their living either manipulating those metal, multi-limbed giants, or breathing in dust in the kelerium mines. The brightest colors that ever graced the horizon originated from the red-hot turbines of the ships that left the planet, for the sun never truly pierced the celadon smog barrier. It was a living, breathing industrial complex, where every person was simply a cog in the machine, peaceful only insofar as its utilitarian, procedural ethos, but it could never truly be called a home.</p><p>You in particular never saw it as such. It had proved a lucrative financial opportunity at best – admittedly a stretch that even the most elastic optimist likely would not attempt – and a mechanized wasteland at worst. You were skilled with your hands, and the shipyards were often above capacity, so good help was a resource in short supply. Moreover, three months’ work in exchange for free docking and parts for your own craft and decent pay was not a deal that could be negotiated on a wealthier and more populace planet. Furthermore, to attempt it in the Outer Rim would inevitably lead to deeper, more morally questionable commitments you had thankfully avoided up to this point. Here, companies and privateers merely asked for repairs, and the legality of their dealings was never called into question. Bills were paid, you received your commission, and no grey areas were explored. You liked it best that way.</p><p>The very nature of it was not entirely unlike the equipment you operated, and it was both a comfort and an itch in need of scratching. You were a drifter – you often stylized it as “adventurer” – and worked odd jobs to fund passage from one planet to the next. The closest you ever came to a long-term commitment was working as a mechanic for a podracing outfit on Malastare: you had an inexplicable sixth sense for diagnosing the fire-breathing, roaring machines, but the casualty rate at podracing events always dissuaded you from traveling that path further. You were also one of the few humans working in that capacity on the planet, and you attracted too much attention. In truth, you were discomforted by any particular level of scrutiny, but deeply so in the overwhelmingly alien sport.</p><p>In fact, it was the same level of study you currently felt at the back of your neck.</p><p>You were elbow-deep in the radiation damper of a Corellian cruiser when the feeling crept up your spine while you were attempting to strip away as many surrounding parts as possible. “Take a picture, Crete, it lasts longer,” you snarked loudly to your boss. It was always Crete – he analyzed every bolt you unscrewed, every wire you cut, every tool you touched, and never doled out praise in spite of your work living up to his perfectionist expectations. He did it with every one of his employees, but you had the sneaking suspicion he begrudgingly enjoyed watching you work. He knew you were good at what you did, even if he resolutely refused to vocalize the sentiment.</p><p>“With that attitude, I’m now reconsidering offering you the client that just came in,” the Ugnaught retorted, tone gravelly.</p><p>“What have you got for me this time?” you replied, lightening your tone a few shades.</p><p>“RZ-2 A-Wing. Stabilizers have sustained the most damage. From the way he tells it, he managed to get it here on fumes.”</p><p>You frowned. “That’s simpleton’s work. Thul wants this done by the end of the week and he promised a hundred credits.”</p><p>“This one would be willing to be pay three hundred.”</p><p>You stopped in mid-motion. <em>Three hundred</em>? That was easily five-fold what that job would normally cost. You swept your goggles on top of your head, wiping the sweat from your forehead on the sleeve of your forest-green button-up, and looked down at Crete, who was standing a couple meters from the base of your ladder. He shrugged wearily. Your expression wrinkled in disbelief, then you sighed heavily. “Alright, I’ll bite,” you played along as you descended. “What’s the catch?”</p><p>“He wants it done before nightfall,” Crete said. You blinked at him.</p><p>“By nightfall?” you said incredulously. “If it’s as bad as he says, that’s a full day’s job at best with three pairs of hands on it.”</p><p>“Just one pair of hands,” he continued, arms crossed. Your form crumpled ever so slightly, and his gaze turned to steel. Diminutive though he was, you had to admit he was expertly proficient at projecting an authoritative air.</p><p>“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you groaned. The credits were tempting, but your hands would be bleeding working at that rate. You had enough loyal customers that you could earn that kind of pay in two weeks without possibly sacrificing the integrity of the very tools that warranted such a reward. Crete eyed you narrowly.</p><p>“You wouldn’t have to split the commission,” he said roughly. You tilted your head, crossing your arms somewhat defiantly but intrigued. “And...I would let you out of your contract two weeks early.”</p><p>Your eyes widened almost imperceptibly – almost. “That would have me leaving...”</p><p>“...tomorrow, yes.” Crete finished brusquely, his features taut.</p><p>That certainly sweetened the pot. You studied and toed the ground for a moment before looking back up at Crete. You sensed something distinctly tense about him.</p><p>“What’s your angle here?” you inquired, suspicion lacing your words. Crete heaved a particularly heavy sigh before answering, then met your eyes with a testy look.</p><p>“I smell trouble on him,” he answered, his voice low. “Anybody that wants work done that quickly can’t have good reason for it.”</p><p>“Then why not send him off?”</p><p>The tension then thickened considerably at that query. You knew Crete was not opposed to working under the table. Ganthel was once prime territory for spicers – ships were loaded to the brim, disguised as kelerium transport vessels, then repairs were claimed, and the mechanics were paid enough that they had no issue keeping their mouths shut. Though the Empire and New Republic forces both had severely constricted such activity, Crete entertained such opportunities still largely for the benefit of his employees, and as infested as the region was with New Republic agents, their officers were not likely to pay any mind to the occasional extravagant purchase made by a Ganthelian mechanic. Though you had no particular qualms with the practice, you had generally skirted those dealings simply to avoid the inevitable complications involved. No grey areas.</p><p>As the silence stretched, you eventually waved the question away. “I’ll do it,” you said finally. Crete nodded.</p><p>“I’ll have it brought into Bay 4.”</p><p>He turned away and began to walk back when you exclaimed, “Oh, and Crete?”</p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“Never ask me to do something like this again.”</p><p> </p><p>Upon appraisal of both the ship and its nervous Britarro pilot, there was no question: somebody wanted him dead. His wide, black orbs must have scanned the bay area a dozen times over in a matter of minutes. To his left, his right, above, behind – he never once completely met your eyes. He was standing about ten meters from the A-wing, looking extremely uncomfortable in his own turquoise skin, wringing his hands, and after studying the stabilizers, you marveled at how much he was willing to pay. It was mostly cosmetic, with one or two integral components badly damaged, but they could be replaced in a matter of hours. Still, the location of the damage indicated he had played chase with someone, but perhaps his pursuer had not possessed the dexterity required to incapacitate the ship, or the Britarro had just barely managed a successful escape with what hyperfuel he had left.</p><p>Either way, he clearly had no concept of mechanical engineering, otherwise he would have paid you substantially less. For his benefit, you presumed the padded cost was simply a thinly veiled intention to buy your silence.</p><p>You climbed down from your ladder, wiping your hands on a rag from one of your pouches as you approached him. “Well, the damage isn’t much deeper than the surface,” you began, pocketing the rag in your vest. “But there are a couple parts that will take some time to extricate and replace. I’m estimating four hours, which would have you out of here by sunset.”</p><p>He breathed a shaky sigh. “So, I return then?” he stammered. Your lips stretched tautly.</p><p>“Yes,” you said, your tone light but with a distinct edge. “Return then. Pay now.”</p><p>His shoulders slumped immediately. You frowned, crossing your arms tightly. “Either you want it done or you don’t,” you asserted icily, your posture straightening. He pursed his thin mouth and wrung his hands before finally frantically digging into the pockets of his tunic for the requisite credit chips. He handed them off in a small drawstring pouch, and you took it with a smile that never reached your eyes.</p><p>“Pleasure doing business with you,” you said brightly, your gaze penetrating him until his discomfort was clearly visible and he quickly scarpered.</p><p> </p><p>Two hours in and one component down, your hands were starting to cramp badly when the tingling sensation at the back of your neck returned. “What is it this time, Crete?” you asked with a harsh yell. “If it’s another creep looking for repairs in record time, I told you, tell him to go sit on a reek’s horn and twirl!” You accidentally twisted your wrist attempting to extract the damaged mass flow sensor, and you swore quietly under your breath at the sharp pain. Crete still had not said a word, and you groaned in frustration. He knew better than to bother you too often when you were under strict time constraints. You rubbed your wrist to soothe the ache and turned towards the bay doors, expecting to see a greying, wild-haired Ugnaught, but you were greeted with an entirely different sight.</p><p>The first thing that unsettled you was the pervading danger that emanated from him. It was not his appearance – he was helmeted, with a chest plate and pauldrons to match – nor was it the spear and rifle hooked over his shoulder or the blaster holster at his hip. This man simply carried it with him in every stride. Each step was calculated and self-assured, completely unburdened by the presumably heavy armor. You appraised him carefully as he approached, his footsteps almost inaudible, and upon closer inspection you recognized the smooth pewter of his armor to be characteristic of beskar. There was an unidentifiable inscription on his right pauldron, and his charcoal cape swayed behind him until he came to a stop a few meters from the base of your ladder.</p><p>“My ship is in need of repairs.” His voice was a deep, modulated baritone. You arched a brow.</p><p>“Did you speak to my boss?” you said in a clipped tone. You were still rubbing your wrist to ease the pain out of it. His helmet angled upward as he presumably stared up at you.</p><p>“He referred me to you,” he replied evenly, and your eyes narrow. “He believed that you would be interested in my proposal.” You studied him closely, attempting to extrapolate some emotion from him, but frustratingly, he remained inscrutable. You turned back to the task at hand and closed your eyes, heaving a sigh. You took a couple steps down the ladder before deftly jumping off, landing lightly in front of him. There was a nearly imperceptible tilt of his helmet. For what was one time too many that day, you crossed your arms, and then blinked slowly at the warrior.</p><p>“Alright,” you said flatly. “Elaborate.”</p><p>“Six hundred credits.”</p><p>A muscle twitched in your cheek as you clenched your jaw tightly to keep it from dropping. <em>Six hundred</em>? You took a stab at nonchalance and cleared your throat.</p><p>“What exactly do you need me to do?” you asked coolly, intoning duality.</p><p>“The repulsor grille on the left thruster is severely damaged, and the radiator panels need to be replaced. I need it done by morning.” Truthfully, his price point was relatively sound. The electronics for the grille were devilishly tricky to repair and would likely require you to work overnight. You stifled a sigh unsuccessfully, so he added taciturnly, “And I will pay you what the Britarro offered in addition if you service mine ahead of his.” There it is. You shuffled absentmindedly for a beat.</p><p>“Am I to assume that he will not be returning for his ship?” you asked quietly. He stayed silent, so you simply stared where you thought his eyes might have been behind the T-visor of his helmet, fidgeting with the pendant at your sternum. On some level, you were grateful he was sparing you the details. A twelve-hundred credit profit and a considerably shortened contract were not to be questioned, but then again, the unease that accompanied the ordeal was already proving a heavy burden to bear. He suddenly turned around to leave the hangar, so you said firmly, “Bring it into the bay. I’ll assess the damage and give you an estimate on time. Credits upfront.”</p><p>He did not acknowledge your words, so you followed him towards the entrance and pushed the hangar doors open wide, the screeching sound of corrugated steel on rails echoing in the expansive metal bay. The skies had turned mossy with flecks of gold from the impending twilight, though the sunset would never breach the clouds, and then your eyes fell upon the warrior’s craft.</p><p>Your immediate thought was how ill-fitting it was for him. You recognized it immediately as an Appazanna gunship, with its distinctive haunches and bubbled canopy. The paint had been predominantly stripped, with some curved streaks of maroon still present but largely worn away by oxidation and, by your approximation, the occasional violent altercation. The panels he referred to before looked like they were hanging on by a thread, and you could see even from this angle how exposed the grille was. Automatically, your gloved left hand went to your right wrist and gently kneaded it.</p><p>After he slowly hovered the vessel into the hangar, its left thruster stuttering loudly, you encircled the ship, pausing to inspect the repulsor grille thoroughly. How had he managed to land this? The ship would have been leaning heavily on one side, its maneuverability almost completely compromised, and the lack of cooling due to the disconnected paneling meant the heat sink would likely have been overloaded. He had to have shut down the ship completely, and likely hoped for the best upon entry into the atmosphere. Maybe briefly engaged the reverse thrusters to cushion the landing. The ship’s side ramp decompressed with a soft hydraulic hiss, and he stepped out: you regarded the warrior curiously, who simply looked back at you blankly, but a newfound respect fizzed in your chest. Wookiee tech though this was, entering Core Worlds territory with this particular scrapheap still surely warranted exposure that would personally make your skin crawl, but he appeared wholly unperturbed.</p><p>To look more closely at the paneling, you needed to climb up the side of the ship. You felt for the creases in the metal hull with your right foot and hands, and agilely pulled yourself up, spider-like. A lightness overtook your footing as you pushed off and reached for another gap in the curvature of the ship, and you scrambled ably to the top. That prickly feeling at the back of your neck suddenly returned, and you privately smirked. You stepped carefully towards the loosened panels, then crouched and peered in to appraise the exposed heat sink. You shook your head, and then simply dropped down from the top of the ship, a slight throb surging in your knees upon impact that time.</p><p>“Your heat sink is damaged,” you informed him. “The panels will be easy, I have plenty of scraps I can repurpose for that, but I’ll need to scavenge for the other parts. The electronics of the repulsor grille will have to be completely rewired. I expect it’ll take me all night, but I can get it done.” He wordlessly reached into a pouch at his waist and extracted currency. You grimaced immediately at the sight.</p><p>Calamari Flan. It would be useless to you amongst the Core Worlds.</p><p>“I’m afraid I can’t accept these,” you interrupted, raising a hand before he could give them to you. You could feel the chill in the air instantly.</p><p>“Do you want my business or not?” he asked pointedly, and the cold, crispness of his tone immobilized you. You were leaving tomorrow, but at that moment you silently cursed him. Calamari Flan was widely accepted in the Outer Rim, questionable to carry in the Inner Rim, and outright dangerous anywhere adjacent to Coruscant. The connotations the currency carried were too conspicuous – what choice would you be left with? You stuck your raised hand out palm upward, belligerence evident in your body language, and he dropped the gelatinous currency in your hand. Your hand curled tightly around the spongy, azure tokens, and you glared intently into the beskar.</p><p>“I will return in the morning,” he said simply, and he strode out of the hangar, his cape flurrying behind him as a warm wind carrying industrial exhaust fumes floated into the bay. You stared down at the Calamari Flan before hiding them in the pouch at your waist, then glanced up to find the unfathomable warrior gone. You began to pull the doors shut, the creaking steel screaming all around you, and then you returned your eyes to his ship and groaned.</p><p>You had a very long night ahead of you.</p><p> </p><p>It had been twelve, grueling hours later when you finally descended from your ladder. Exhaustion plagued every muscle, but the repulsor grille was repaired and the heat sink replaced. You had gone digging amongst the abandoned ships behind the hangar for the requisite parts, searching for a match until you came upon an Appazanna a generation older than the warrior’s ship. You had stripped its cooling system bare and transferred the majority of the parts to the junior vessel, while also reshaping and refitting the paneling from the older model to suit your needs. You assessed your work critically, pleased, then clambered down the ladder, removing your gloves and goggles once your feet found solid ground. It was a wonder your legs did not collapse underneath you at the sensation, but you stretched and slowly trekked to a corner of the bay, where a small sink resided. You washed your hands, soothing the ache from them with the flood of sudden warmth, and splashed a cup of water in your face. You grabbed at a small, dirtied towel by the faucet and wiped at your face, feeling freshened, your mind unclouding.</p><p>It was only then that it occurred to you that the Britarro had never returned for his ship. You had figured that would be the case, but curiously, Crete had also never visited you at any point during the evening. He habitually stopped by any time you were working on a new craft, sometimes questioning your thought process and how you chose to tackle a task if it was particularly gnarly. Perhaps knowing he had saddled you with not one, but two jobs practically infeasible to do alone and reeking of suspicious activity had forced him into hiding. You strode over to the hangar doors, pulling them adequately enough for you to slide through the opening. The horizon was a dark, muddled swirl of pine green and midnight blue, and the only source of light in the area were the light poles that lined the dusty roads winding through the shipyard. You surveyed your surroundings momentarily before spotting two ships in the darkness about a hundred meters from you, and your chest tightened.</p><p>They were X-wings, landed close to Crete’s office.</p><p>And their pilots, with Crete leading them, were headed straight towards your hangar.</p><p>They had not yet spotted you, your figure hopefully too shadowy to make out against the hangar, so you quickly ducked back inside. You dashed to your bag of tools resting at the base of your ladder and hurriedly stowed your pouch full of credits amongst the gear, swearing repeatedly under your breath. Up to this point, you had largely avoided entanglements with New Republic patrollers. You cursed yourself before swiping a random tool from the bag and closing it, swiping a rag from your pocket and feigning acute intent with regard to cleaning the instrument as you heard the scrape of boots against gravel and dust approaching from outside.</p><p>Then, piercingly: “<em>Fixer!</em>”</p><p>It was Crete’s nickname for you. You imagined it had been conceived purely because he had forgotten your name from your initial meeting with him. Your head snapped in his direction – a little too quickly, you chastised yourself – and you tilted your head to regard the New Republic officers. Clad in orange jumpsuits, one was portly, with a greying beard, and the other was average in height and build, with an unkempt ponytail tied at the nape of his neck.</p><p>Crete looked meaningfully at you and then at the officers. “These gentlemen are looking for two bounty hunters,” he stated carefully, at which point your brows rose. “One is a Britarro, the other a highly coveted target of New Republic forces that orchestrated and successfully mounted the escape of a prisoner from a New Republic correctional facility in the past year. It seems that we may have offered them both our services.”</p><p>Your gaze swept between Crete and the shorter New Republic pilot with a flicker of annoyance. Not that you thought it was worth asking the question, but you played along with the game. “What is the species of the second individual?” you asked, fatigued.</p><p>“Human,” the bearded pilot interjected authoritatively. “But a Mandalorian.”</p><p>The significance of the word was not lost on you. You had heard legends about the Mandalorians – not your standard bedtime story, per se, but one that had been imparted to you as a child. They were fearsome, morally inflexible, and fiercely adherent to their codes of honor. It was no wonder then that the warrior’s presence had stirred anxiety in you. Regrettably, your expression also seemed to betray that feeling, as the pilots peered at you charily. You straightened and made an attempt to erase as much emotion from your features as possible.</p><p>“The Britarro asked that I repair the stabilizers on his ship,” you offered tersely. “Said he would return before nightfall for it. He never did.”</p><p>“And the Mandalorian?”</p><p>“Needed the repulsor grille on his left thruster repaired, along with the heat sink and radiator panels replaced.” Your responses were short, and you crossed your arms defiantly.</p><p>“Did either of them offer any details as to how their ships sustained such damage?”</p><p>“I don’t ask my clients any questions I don’t want to know the answers to,” you answer coldly, then tilted your head slightly. “Captain.” The pilot’s shoulders tightened, and he regarded you with poorly masked derision.</p><p>“Did either of them pay you upfront for your services?”</p><p>You clenched your fist around the tool you held. Both transactions were unspoken bribes you had accepted, and the currency of one of them was potentially illegal to carry amongst the Core Worlds. For having avoided this exact breed of circumstance for so long, you wondered now how you had managed to find yourself in a platinum spotlight.</p><p>“No,” you eventually said, relaxing your jaw and smirking slightly. “Though, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I had now.” The two pilots still looked at you suspiciously, but you simply shrugged. Crete in particular was watchful of your body language.</p><p>“Did the Mandalorian specify when he would collect his ship?”</p><p>You had two options: one, you could betray him, which would inevitably result in you being hunted, perhaps a firefight between him and New Republic officers in which you wanted no part – or, if not a violent outcome, then they would stay and surely one of the two officers would be asking you more questions than you were willing to answer; two, you could lie on his behalf and inarguably implicate yourself in the protection of a wanted criminal, but it could buy you enough time to leave without a trace for the Outer Rim. Though you had no violations on your record up to this point, you had had good reason for evading the New Republic for as long as you had, and you would rather tangle with petty criminals than answer for the life you had led thus far. Better the devil you know...</p><p>“No.”</p><p>...than the devil you don’t.</p><p>The two New Republic officers stared at you blankly, before the shorter of the two finally sighed. “Well, if he does return at any point, don’t hesitate to inform us. We’ve been told that he’s recently run into trouble with the Bounty Hunters’ Guild, and it’s imperative that we get to him before they do. We’ll be scouting the region in the meantime.” Your curiosity was piqued, but you made an attempt to hide it and believed the effort to be successful. You simply nodded while Crete thanked the two, and it was a few moments after he escorted them both out that he returned and regarded you with intense scrutiny.</p><p>“Did they pay you?” You remained silent as you suddenly found your boots to be of immense intrigue, long enough for him to eventually sigh. “Well, I was going to lose you anyway,” he said, and your head shot up immediately. He waved his hand. “Your work here is done. Take what is yours and go.” You felt a great surge of affection for Crete at that moment, and you sensed it within him as well. You deposited the tool in your hand in your bag, digging into it further for your KYD-21 – which you furtively placed in your vest pocket – and then slung the bag over your chest, the lower muscles in your back dully protesting the maneuver.</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>He nodded silently, his face stern as you walked away quickly, and as you were a few meters from the doorway to the adjacent hangar, he yelled, “And Fixer?”</p><p>You turned back to face the Ugnaught, forehead creased.</p><p>“May the Force be with you.”</p><p>Your heart heavied, and you nodded solemnly before silently wishing that you would never see Crete or Ganthel again.</p><p> </p><p>Your ship was stored in a docking area several hangars down from where you had been working on the Mandalorian’s vessel. Forced to keep it hidden amongst the ships of paying customers, you had spent the better part of two months covertly scavenging for upgraded parts to install between shifts – a newer hyperdrive, more efficient hyperfuel cells, a complete rewiring of the control panel, and a more refined cooling system...to say you were proud was an understatement. It was as much your escape as it was your home, a portal to the next great adventure and the place to which you always returned. It had long deserved better than it had been treated, so you honored it the only way you knew how.</p><p>You pulled a lever by the entrance to the docking bay to open the doors, and the automated system hummed to life loudly as the doors parted and dull, greenish light spilled into the building. On the opposite wall, rows upon rows of ships were stacked on top of each other. Yours was roughly thirty meters up, and after moving quickly across the docking bay, you started scaling the ladder directly adjacent to where your ship was platformed. On your ascent, you occasionally scanned behind you, though you sensed no presence. When you finally reached your ship, you breathed a sigh of relief. Your vessel was not especially large, a small transport ship that doubled as an able, agile fighter. It was the one remnant you had of where you came from, into which you poured your heart and soul, expended your blood, sweat, and tears – all you had to give belonged to this ship alone.</p><p>You stepped out onto the expansive, steel platform, and dug through the pockets of your vest for the controller. You strapped it to your wrist once you found it and gently pressed a green, triangular button, and the ramp dropped with a stuttering creak. The hydraulics were still somewhat rusted: you had planned on thoroughly cleaning the ship before you departed, but you were now obligated to an accelerated schedule. You stepped up the ramp and shut it behind you from a few presses on the control panel on the wall, and you lifted the tool bag over your head and dropped it on the floor with a heavy clank.</p><p>You closed your eyes and breathed deeply for a moment, resting against the wall of the ship’s inner hull. Your back was sore, your hands raw from working nonstop, and now you had to plan on planet-hopping until you were positive that the New Republic patrollers thought you would simply be too much trouble to find. You felt soothed by the darkness surrounding you, and even considered for a moment sleeping in that very spot before you made your leave of Ganthel.</p><p>Then, that peculiar sensation ascended your spine and buzzed at the nape of your neck.</p><p>You breathed as evenly as you could, and your hand slowly creeped into your pocket to draw your blaster.</p><p>“Don’t.” You froze, attempting to scan the hull in its entirety without moving your head to pinpoint the location of the deep, modulated voice.</p><p>“Why not?” you replied boldly, mustering as much bravery as you could.</p><p>“Because I know a place we both can hide.”</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. The Stowaway</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hey all! Thank you guys so much for the kudos so far! I decided to post this chapter a day early as I have a lot on my plate the next few days, so thought it was better that I do it before I forget. This chapter is a little on the short side, but the next few chapters are each significantly longer in length, so this is more or less just a transitional interlude in the story. Enjoy, and feel free to leave any comments/critiques/general feedback! :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You were not scared – you had not been confronted with that particular emotion since were much younger. You were not even angry. You were simply baffled. You reached for a blue button on your wristlet, and the lights in the hull flickered on from front to back. The bright white luminescence gleamed back at you from the beskar helmet of your intruder. He was leaning nonchalantly against the wall at the far corner opposite you, hands folded over one another at the wrists. His blaster was holstered, and you noticed that both his spear and rifle were propped against the wall.</p><p>Now you felt mildly affronted. Who had the nerve to be that relaxed, that insouciant when forcefully encroaching on someone else’s territory without invitation? Your mind flashed to your first impression of the bounty hunter – effortless, self-assured, calculated. Your hand still hovered over your pocket warily.</p><p>“There are New Republic squadrons crawling all over this region that want you in cuffs, and the Bounty Hunters’ Guild is after you. What exactly would I stand to gain from having you aboard my ship?” His helmet tilted, as if he was analyzing you closely. You had never handled this level of scrutiny well, and it especially discomforted you now. You decided to forcefully make a break from it: “You have your own ship. Get off of mine.”</p><p>“You said it yourself, the area is swarming with the New Republic,” he argued back, his voice level yet firm. “That ship is of no value to me, and it won’t take long for them to realize you lied about my whereabouts.” You faltered as you sought to process that statement, but he continued before you could recover, gesturing palms upward in an effort of negotiation. “I know someone that could provide shelter and could use your expertise. You could lay low for a few months. If we leave together now, then that affords us both a head start.” You shake your head and turn to face him fully, a humorless smile on your lips.</p><p>“You know, I’d have thought a Mandalorian would be smart enough not to follow his bounty into the thick of New Republic territory,” you stated coolly. He was silent again, and the air turned frigid. You attempted to gaze back, but where his was impassive, yours felt distinctly more vulnerable. You recoiled. “Who is it you know?”</p><p>“She manages a hangar on Tatooine,” he said, slow but smoothly. “From there, we can go our separate ways. I can pay the cost of fuel to get us there.” Truthfully, you were not opposed. Though there was work for likely much better pay on the planet, this person’s business sounded more discreet. Normal. You liked normal. You chewed at the inside of your mouth thoughtfully before returning your gaze to the Mandalorian.</p><p>“You have a name?” The stony silence that immediately followed made you regret asking. Admittedly, silence had always appealed to you – you had lived with it for much of your life. You found solace in it, in keeping your hands busy enough to completely empty your mind. But this was thick and taut and settled in your chest, inflating like a balloon the longer it lingered.</p><p>“Mando,” came the short reply.</p><p>“Original,” you deadpanned, but you chose not to pursue the point further. He tilted his head slightly again, and the movement reminded you strongly of an Ewok. You stifled a snort at the thought, and further pondered that maybe you should be significantly less amused by the deadly warrior. He had managed to break into your ship without you realizing, so perhaps the joke was on you. After much interpretation of his body language, in hindsight, you imagined that perhaps the tilt was in fact simply a wordless “<em>and your name?</em>”, so you obliged, dropping your hand finally.</p><p>“Just call me Fixer.” He stared. Evidently, you both had cards to keep close to your chest.</p><p>Since the conversation had lost its appeal, you maneuvered to the cockpit, flipping on the ambient lighting and unceremoniously sunk into the pilot’s seat, closing your eyes to take a breath. You were exhausted. You had not slept in over a day, you had barely eaten, and now you had a several-day journey to embark upon with a silent, remarkably lethal companion. You then suddenly heard soft, booted footsteps, and switches being manipulated on the control panel. Without looking, your hand snapped to find his warm, leather-gloved fingers punching in coordinates. You gripped them tightly, then opened your eyes and glared at the Mandalorian, who blankly stared back, but you felt fire in your bones.</p><p>“My ship.”</p><p>“I thought you might not have known the coordinates.”</p><p>“Never make assumptions about me.”</p><p>You felt a wave of heat spill over you as you realized you still were gripping the Mandalorian’s hand none too gently. You swiftly pulled it away and returned your focus to the dashboard of your ship. He stepped back and settled himself in the passenger’s seat as you plugged in the coordinates, preparing the ship for launch. Another heavy silence descended upon the cockpit, and you pulled the lever back as the single reverse thruster rumbled to life. The ship slowly pulled away from the docking platform, and you smoothly course-corrected so it was simply hovering in the docking bay.</p><p>Then, you punched it.</p><p>You had forgotten how exhilarating the sensation was as the ship swept at lightning speed into the day, the cascading, celadon rays of morning light dancing across the cockpit glass and steel hull. As the ship ascended, you laid eyes upon the shipyards, factories, and machinery that extended as far as you could see through the blanket of smog. Since you had arrived at Ganthel, it had not occurred to you how much sunlight was truly filtered by the pillows of smoke and condensation circulating in the air, but now leaving the forsaken, industrialized behemoth, you vaguely eyed your hands: they were callused, and the light freckling on your forearms normally masked by a sheen of tan were stark against the paleness of your skin.</p><p>You appraised the screen on the control panel and groaned. Fuel was low. You swore quietly under your breath and felt the tingle at your neck immediately.</p><p>“Sometimes the ships in the docking bay, their fuel gets siphoned,” you answered the question you knew was playing at the Mandalorian’s lips, your tone gritty. “The Ganthelians sell it at reduced cost to the spicers. It’s an easy pay-day. They must have got caught before they could finish my ship off.” He appraised the console as you continued. “Conservatively, the farthest I could get us would be somewhere in the Kuat Sector.”</p><p>“You could make it to Corellia.” You blanched at the suggestion.</p><p>“Corellia is worse than here – ”</p><p>“Corellia is enough to place distance between us and the New Republic,” he cut in forcefully. “Before they can crossmatch their databases, we’ll already be gone.” You lean back, frustrated, palming your forehead. In theory, Corellia was possible, but in reality, Corellia was insanity. There was enough coordination between Corellian enforcement and the New Republic to unsettle you, so you ultimately would have no choice but to nestle yourself in the coastal region of the planet’s capital. Several of the crime syndicates that operated out of that territory had not been dismantled by either force; though you were not one of their own, you knew the syndicates had their own honor code. You were immensely reluctant to admit it, but he made valid points.</p><p>Better the devil you knew.</p><p>Wordlessly, you keyed in the coordinates for Corellia, and as your ship groaned upon breaking the putrid atmosphere, you throttled the ship into hyperspace. The entire vessel lurched, and your chest tightened at the sensation of being thrown into light speed, like simultaneously having all of the wind forced from your body and being burdened with the weight of a planet. Then, as soon after it had begun, streaks of sapphire luminesced in a dizzying array around your ship, and your body rocked forward as the ship stabilized in hyperspace.</p><p>It was then that your shoulders completely dropped, and you let loose a breath that you felt like you had been holding in since you left Crete standing in the hangar bay. Your eyelids hung heavy, and your head felt like a cave in the midst of collapse.</p><p>“You need sleep.”</p><p>Your head snapped back up at the sound of his voice. It was matter of fact, but you sensed something mildly gentle. You would have softened if you could forget why it was you were that tired in the first place. “That might have something to do with working twelve consecutive hours to fix a ship that’ll likely never be flown again,” you countered bitterly. There was a very pregnant pause, during which you looked back at the Mandalorian to find him almost inhumanly immobile. His helmet tilted and that was all: you quickly began to realize that that damned helmet allowed for the extrapolation of a thousand different possible interpretations of his emotions from every fractional movement. You wondered if there was a smug part of him that liked that and preferred to keep it that way.</p><p>“This is my ship, and I will be the one to fly it to Corellia.” you stated, intoning finality. You heard a slight shuffling behind you, but you ignored it in favor of the zipping white and cerulean light beams ahead of you. You breathed deeply again.</p><p>You imagined how different of a situation you would be in if you had declined the Britarro’s initial offer and handed the job off to another mechanic, or let Crete handle it himself. You had developed a soft spot for the old Ugnaught, and now you found yourself burdened with a fugitive stowaway to show for it. A Mandalorian, no less. In appearance, he possessed all the subtlety of an incensed Wookiee, and he also happened to be just as deadly. You knew little of Mandalorian culture besides that they were rather obtusely committed to their pride and almost spiritually devoted to mastering combative technique. As a child, however, you were entranced by the legend – strong, fearless warriors, with principles as pliable as a mountain, and just as overpowering in stature to behold. Resolute forces of nature. Invulnerable.</p><p>You turned to look behind you and found a Mandalorian warrior who was slumped in his seat, arms folded over each other, and helmet lolled slightly to the side.</p><p>So much for Mandalorian legend.</p><p> </p><p>You awoke panicked, with your blaster already drawn and breathless. You realized quickly that you had inadvertently surrendered to a pleasant, pillowy breach of consciousness, and you swore. How long had you been out of it? You were still in hyperspace, streaks and flecks of indigo and azure whizzing past you while the ship appeared to be static. In your muddled, feeble state, the sensation was far less enthralling and much more unsettling. Your vision bleary, you made a weak attempt to examine the control panel, one hand grasping for the dashboard, craving stability: you would be dropping out of hyperspace...in...</p><p>Could the damned number just <em>stop</em> jumping back and forth on the console?</p><p>“We’ll be in the Corellian sector in ten minutes.” You looked groggily behind you and saw the Mandalorian leaning casually against the cockpit doorway. Perhaps it was merely a projection on your part, but you did not appreciate his haughty yet poised demeanor. You eyed him narrowly with what you hoped was a sharp, focused look, but in actuality was a very dazed, droopy gawk in his general direction.</p><p>“How long...”</p><p>“A few hours,” he doled out calmly. “You needed sleep.”</p><p>You reproached yourself. “And you?” He stared, and then the realization struck you that he never had. Damn him. Mandalorian one, you zero. You rose from the pilot’s chair, your back protesting loudly with every movement, and brushed past him in the cramped doorway. In the hull, you opened the door to a small, cramped privy and flipped the light on, disoriented at first as your eyes adjusted to the fluorescence and searched for a medium-sized hard case. Your eyes fell upon it and you started digging for a change of clean clothes: you were uncomfortably conscious of the grime from yesterday still caked upon your skin, and the heavy smoke from Ganthel trapped in your clothing.</p><p>You closed the door with a whistling zip and scrambled out of your dark, forest-green gear, using the dirty clothes to wipe off the sheen of oil on your skin and you hurriedly swapped into slate grey pants, black boots, and a tucked-in simple black, loose top. You reached for a small facecloth at the sink, soaking it in the hottest water your ship could muster – which, sadly, proved to be very tepid, but credit given for effort – and gently rubbing it upon your features. Up to that point, you had intentionally disregarded the mirror, but you finally stole a look: you had dark, purple half-moons shadowing your eyes, and your face possessed a faintly waxy glow, so you polished the skin more deliberately with the cloth until it was ruddy, but softer. You were reluctant to call it an improvement, but you felt you had scrubbed away the last traces of your time on Ganthel, and that alone lightened the weight on your shoulders considerably. You then fumbled with your hair, which had been unceremoniously tied on top of your head for the past twenty-four hours and swept it into a loose braid to rest at your shoulder. Before you left the tiny compartment, you scavenged your chest until you discovered your holster, which you strapped to your thigh and in which you stowed your blaster pistol.</p><p>You emerged fresh-faced and returned to the cockpit to find the Mandalorian standing in relatively the same position you had left him in, stoic, and a part of you smirked. Perhaps he had heeded your warning about familiarizing himself with the ship after all, or at the very least, he respected what was yours. You swept past him to appraise the console: three minutes until they descended upon Corellia.</p><p>“Better strap in,” you muttered, mostly to yourself, and you settled into your chair, assembling the five-point harness below your sternum. You heard shuffling and the click of belts behind you, signifying that the Mandalorian had heard you. Two minutes left.</p><p>“Our best bet is Coronet City,” he said suddenly. “There are criminal factions still operating seaside. If we avoid intruding on their territory, they’ll allow us to conduct our business and carry on our way.” Restrained as you were, you made an attempt to turn and face the warrior, eyes guessing at where his were behind the T-visor with a look of derision. One minute left.</p><p>“Intruding somewhere you shouldn’t?” you replied, tone incredulous. “I imagine you’ll find that to be immensely difficult.” You resumed your position, smirking at the reflection of the Mandalorian in the glass as the ship lurched upon exiting hyperspace and reentered the endless black expanse of space.</p>
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<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Informant</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Decided to get this one out a little earlier for you guys! Chapter 4 is in the works, but will probably not be published until next weekend. Enjoy! :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>At a distance, Corellia was beautiful.</p><p>The operative phrase: at a distance.</p><p>From high above, the planet’s oceanic surface with its shifting landmasses portrayed a place of tranquil, unintrusive beauty. On the planet, it was a scum-infested den of marauders, spicers, and mercenaries, grimy with layers of impropriety and dirt so sedimented that to extract anything of worth would be a fruitless effort. The years under control of the Galactic Empire had taken an indelible, perhaps unretractable toll on the planet; whereas other sectors had evolved into phoenixes, rising from the ashes of the Empire to greet the dawn of the New Republic, Corellia had remained buried.</p><p>You shifted uncomfortably in your seat at the sight. For all of your peripatetic tendencies, you had avoided Corellia in recognition of its reputation for absorbing wanderers into its criminal underbelly, like water overtaking seashells strewn across a shore and stealing them in its wake. Admittedly, with your skills, it could have been a reliable source of income: with Corellia’s shipbuilding industry, you would have ably integrated into the industrial culture, but you had no interest in tangling with Empiric remnants, nor the established syndicates who had made Corellia their headquarters. Lastly, the New Republic’s interloping only furthered dissuaded you from seeking opportunity here. All of it overlapped in a gargantuan grey area.</p><p>And you were now in the center of it.</p><p>You blinked forcefully to extricate yourself from your murky thoughts. You adjusted what little fuel load was left supplementing the thrusters in order to neutralize the speed at which your ship was approaching the Corellian atmosphere. Hesitation suddenly overwhelmed you as you realized that you had no grasp on where was conceivably a safe – or, at the very least, less hazardous – landing site relative to Coronet City. You made a reach for the navigation panel when a modulated voice interrupted, “I set coordinates for the eastern coast of Coronet – there’s a neutral docking area there, but we’ll have to avoid the scrumrats in the region.”</p><p>Your brow furrowed and you dipped your head. “Scrumrats?”</p><p>“They’re children, abducted and coerced into criminal servitude,” he replied tensely, and your heart sank slightly. “They’ll scavenge anything and everything, if for no other reason than to avoid punishment.” It rang true with what you knew of Corellia, but that did not lessen the painful reality of the situation. Frustration seeped into your sigh, now knowing that what weaponry you were armed with would likely be off the table for this venture.</p><p>“You’re also in need of rations – we should venture into the city for supplies.” He had added the statement casually, but you quirked a brow at him, a thrum of annoyance buzzing in your mind immediately as comprehension clicked.</p><p>“Did you go through my belongings?” you asked incredulously. He remained silent as ever, and you groaned. You had always assessed yourself as possessing some degree of nerve – meanwhile, he had practically made himself at home on your ship while you had rendered your hands raw and aching fixing his wretched vessel.</p><p>You just hoped this would prove to be a very brief detour.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>You tasted the salt the breeze carried from the sea as you descended the ramp of your ship, the wind tugging at your braid and tickling your neck softly. Though Corellia bore a striking resemblance to Ganthel with regard to its industrial stature and enormous steel edifices, the air was much cooler, the sky far brighter and a pale, powder blue, and the scent of the ocean mingling with manufacturing fumes danced upon the wind. You pulled your jacket closer to your chest and knotted the lavender grey scarf at your neck tightly, striding towards a small alien whose hands and attention were consumed by a mechanic droid with uncoordinated limbs and a lolling, lopsided head. He was flat faced, with beady black eyes and an egg-shaped skull, the top of which only reached your sternum. You called for his notice, to which he eyed you somewhat disdainfully.</p><p>“My ship is in need of refueling,” you explained, gesturing to your vessel, before then dipping your hand into your pocket to fish out a few tokens of Calamari Flan and presenting them to the humanoid alien with a meaningful look. “For your troubles, if you could do so quickly.”</p><p>He glanced at the ship momentarily, then back up at you with a languid air. He crossed his arms and supplied lazily, “It should take about two hours to refuel.”</p><p>Your jaw throbbed for how tightly you clenched it. The diminutive, tan humanoid standing before you looked expectant, but also entirely too smug for you to tolerate conversation with him much longer. You glared at him, the next words catching in your throat as you sensed an imposing presence maneuver almost silently behind you; judging by the look on the docking agent’s face, there would be no further negotiation.</p><p>“It will take one hour.”</p><p>The voice dripped with a lethal, forceful potency, and a wave of heat swallowed your body whole. Out of the corner of your vision, you saw a gloved hand presenting several tokens of Calamari Flan: you personally did not agree with the sum being offered, but so long as it meant leaving sooner, you suspended your protests. Moreover, the expression of pure, unadulterated terror that traveled swiftly across the feeble agent’s face was more than worth the credits in the Mandalorian’s palm. He simply nodded shakily and scampered off, muttering anxiously, “Right away, yes, my pleasure...”</p><p>You were fixed on the spot, unsure if it was a consequence of embarrassment or from simply observing what kind of power the Mandalorian so effortlessly exerted over others. Had that same gaping, submissive countenance plagued your features when he had first confronted you? Or had you rebuffed his callous demeanor? If that was the case, what inner reserve of foolish daring had you drawn from to counter this chrome statue? You entertained the thought a moment further and then wondered why he had made allowances for your audacity up to this point. Truthfully, you had no obligation to afford him any courtesy given the circumstances that led to your entanglement with one another, but you were now bemused by the extent to which he had tolerated your animosity towards him, given his easily perceptible lack of patience. Further, you wondered what the risk was that the impudence you had leveled at him thus far would come back to haunt you.</p><p>“Let’s get supplies.” He had said it so perfunctorily that the tone implied that he intended to go without your acknowledgement or not. He strode past you, and you followed in silence, slightly aggrieved at leaving your ship behind; it was one of your few prized possessions, and you had never been comfortable with the notion of letting it out of your sight for extended stretches of time. Meanwhile, though you were of a slightly above average height, his long, even gait challenged your pace, finding yourself taking two steps for every one of his as you made an attempt to march alongside him.</p><p>The dock was bustling with workers, with spray from the sea scantly scattered across the platform, and sizable steel crates being maneuvered and stacked. Much like Ganthel, there were many large, building-sized machines, some shuttling small freighters in their claws, others carrying docking equipment from one landing to the next. There were species of all shapes and sizes swarming the platform: Twi’lek, Barbadelans, Mon Calamari, Rodians, Togrutas, and plenty you had never laid eyes on before. You would have expected this level of diversity from Coruscant, not necessarily from Corellia – you wondered if the collaboration with the New Republic had reformed Corellia into a far more prosperous, respectable domain, and the thought caused your anxiety to spike. You were here purely at the Mandalorian’s suggestion, and you hoped rather half-heartedly that his instinct was trustworthy.</p><p>On another plane of thinking, you also considered the likelihood that you could leave alone, or that you would be <em>left here </em>alone. Could this have been an elaborate ruse on his part simply to abandon you here and take your ship? You had understood the Mandalorians of old to have prided themselves immensely on their loyalty to their moral code, but how closely did this particular one adhere to those of legend? Thus far, all you had observed was that he was an obstinately quiet man, if he was a man at all – in fairness you had been given no indication to prove otherwise – with an air of authority others seemed incapable of displacing. Everything else was merely extrapolated from what you knew of Mandalorian culture. For all you knew, he might not even be a Mandalorian at all, but simply masqueraded as one for the purposes of intimidation.</p><p>Then again – you did a quick approximation of the worth of the beskar he wore – it took a certainly unique, but especially lethal talent to have acquired that armor. Rather unthinkingly, you found yourself cursorily appraising the Mandalorian as you walked alongside him: notably, that he was armed to the hilt. In the holster at his hip, you noted an IB-94 blaster pistol – a BlasTech product, so likely reliable to a fault – a disruptor sniper rifle slung over his shoulder, and a staff that seemingly matched the metal of his armor. However, the most curious of all of his deadly artifacts was the jagged, angular hilt that hung on his belt, resting against his other hip. You noticed it was relatively hidden, obscured by the charcoal cape draped across his shoulder, as if he wanted its presence left unknown, but from this angle you could see it swinging gently with every movement. To avoid a questioning look, you decided to firmly maintain a stare in the forward direction.</p><p>You and the Mandalorian had left the open docks at this point and found yourselves in an expansive, sheltered area, with a ceiling roughly twenty meters high above and enclosed on the left and right with corrugated steel. There were several ships resting on their haunches, lined up wing to wing on your left in varying states of disrepair, and as a light breeze swept through you caught the scent of hydraulic fluid, exhaust fumes, and freshly welded metal. You eyed an Ugnaught ordering three short, rather frenetic utility droids who were struggling to lift what appeared to be a front deflector shield projector, and you were somewhat painfully reminded of the way Crete would closely watch you work. For all his faults, there had always been something oddly comforting about his presence, almost parental in both his critique and the way he doled out restrained praise. You could feel the Mandalorian looking upon you, perhaps curiously, at which point you discouraged the feeling with a slight shake of your head.</p><p>Upon exiting the hangar, you were greeted unexpectedly with a wide but still extremely crowded street, lined on both sides with small booths and stalls with likely too excitable merchants standing behind them, eager to sell their overpriced wares. It was grey and gloomy, for here the steel buildings towered high enough to cast oblong shadows across the charcoal veins that snaked their way through the heart of Coronet City, now laid bare before you and beating with the rhythm of a thousand different footsteps and voices all strangely pulsing in tandem. The only flashes of color you saw were a few worn and tattered banners, some emerald and indigo, others scarlet contrasted with a dingy, unwashed shade of white, hanging haphazardly from the side of a few smaller building units. Given you had initially envisioned Corellia to be a hazardous, murky urban swamp infested with shifty characters, this small exposure to what the Mandalorian had told you were the eastern <em>outskirts </em>of Coronet City was an overwhelming culture shock to you.</p><p>“Stay close,” the Mandalorian said almost inaudibly to you, his voice deep enough to break through the overwhelming rustling of the crowd around you but so quiet you barely caught the words as he brushed past you. He did not quicken his pace, but the intentionality of his stride signaled that you should heed his command. As you maneuvered through throngs of alien bodies – some grunting, some wearing their naïveté excitedly on their sleeve, and others casting multiple sets of beady, wary eyes upon the heavily armed warrior you were following – you eventually found yourself sidling down a side alley. Given the Mandalorian’s earlier remarks regarding Corellian scrumrats, you thought that veering too far from a more populated region would have made you both easy fodder for indentured thieves. You peered behind you and noted that the hazy, grey light from the main street had dwindled significantly, the view partially blocked by a few errant, oddly placed crates in the alley you had maneuvered around earlier, but the Mandalorian remained steadfast in traveling down the darkened side street.</p><p>The voices and drumming of footsteps on pavement had dissipated, and an eerie quiet had descended. There was no clear exit to the alley, and your apprehension slowly ascended the longer the silence stretched. Then, suddenly, he signaled for you to stop with a subtle wave of his hand. You came to a halt and shifted towards the alley wall, your body adhering to the cool steel surface, and in the shadow took notice that the alley intersected with another side street on the right-hand side, and the Mandalorian was tensed right before this juncture. You were acutely aware of your vulnerability here in the alley, and at the nape of your neck you felt a hum that elevated your anxiety several stories.</p><p>Then, before you could ask what grand scheme the silent warrior had in mind, your body was ripped away from the wall and you felt the thrumming, cold steel of a vibro-knife at your throat. You swore as you kicked your feet out behind you, while a wiry but strong forearm wrapped around your middle, your attacker having captured both your arms in one swoop and also managing to evade each wild strike of your leg. The Mandalorian had whipped around at lightning-fast speed, his blaster pistol already unholstered and pointed at your captor, and you struggled uselessly against an iron grip.</p><p>“Let her go,” the Mandalorian said evenly.</p><p>“Drop your blaster.” The voice took you by surprise – it was adolescent tonally. If you were to hazard a guess, your abductor was no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, yet his arm dug in below your rib cage, bruising and pressing painfully into your internal organs. Surprisingly, the Mandalorian obliged, crouching without presumably breaking eye contact and placed the blaster pistol on the dusty urban floor.</p><p>After rising back to full stature, he replied shortly, “I have credits.”</p><p>“I don’t want your credits,” he hissed, and you shivered at the proximity of his voice, directly adjacent to your ear.</p><p>“Enough for a ticket to the Outer Rim,” the Mandalorian quickly added. The gloved hand holding the vibro-knife at your throat pulled away ever so slightly, and you noticed that the young man’s grip around your waist had slackened just enough for you to bring your arm forward enough, bend it, and then sharply jolt the brunt of your elbow back into his ribs. He groaned in pain at the maneuver, the vibro-blade in his hand dropping and clattering on the pavement, and before he could react further, the Mandalorian bent at the knees and you watched as steel rope launched from the vambrace encapsulating his right wrist with a <em>zip</em>, and the whipcord wrapped around the staggering figure of your captor behind you. The Mandalorian smoothly pulled the writhing young man towards him as you leapt out of the way against the wall, and you finally laid eyes on your attacker. You had guessed the age correctly: he was still a youth, with tousled brunette hair and dark, sunken eyes. He was slim in frame, features gaunt but partially hidden by a tattered maroon scarf wrapped around his neck. He had pronounced yet hollowed, grimy cheeks that told a story of constant starvation. In another life, you imagined he would have been a handsome young man, but in this one, he had clearly been severely weathered by a harsh, scavenger’s existence.</p><p>The Mandalorian grabbed the scrumrat by the dark brown collar of his frayed jacket none too gently, then firmly: “Do <em>not</em> try to follow us again, or it will be your life. Do you understand me?” The scrumrat squirmed against the Mandalorian’s grip, and in response the warrior pulled him within an inch of his helmet and effortlessly jostled him like a ragdoll.</p><p>“<em>Do you understand</em>?” His voice was deep and husky, bordering on feral. You simply gulped in the silence, thick like honey and too stunned to move but still searching for an even, far less ragged breath. The adolescent blanched, and rapidly nodded his head. The Mandalorian then used the vambrace on his other wrist to cut the cord, and the scrumrat dropped unceremoniously on the ground. He scrambled out of the steel whipcord, while you casually covered his lost vibro-knife with your foot, feeling its vibrational hum under your sole, and you and the Mandalorian watched as the scavenger darted down the alleyway back towards the dull light of the main street. You and the Mandalorian exchanged a look as you still rasped for a full breath, and it only occurred to you then how forcefully your heart was hammering against your ribcage.</p><p>“Are you okay?” he asked, and you noticed the subtle gentleness in his tone. You closed your eyes as you managed to slow your heart rate enough to allow for a full, deep, even breath of air entering your lungs.</p><p>“Sure,” you finally said. “Let’s call it that.” He tilted his head quizzically at you, but you resolutely avoided his gaze. You bent down to retrieve the vibro-knife from under your foot, shutting off the vibrational mechanism, and then sheathed it inelegantly into the inside of your boot. You gestured back towards the main street and added, “Shall we?” His helmet dipped slightly forward, and he started walking back from where you both had come, treading quietly and far more slowly than he had earlier. Out of a newfound paranoia, you stole a glance behind you before then joining the Mandalorian. On your way into the alley, you had not realized how cramped it was until now upon exiting as you found yourself almost pressed alongside the silent bounty hunter, but perhaps it was also simply the broadness of his body that brought the width of the backstreet to your attention.</p><p>Eventually, you reached the crowded main boulevard again, and the scrumrat was nowhere in sight. You glanced at the Mandalorian, who tilted his helmet in the direction of the hangar, and you nodded. Somehow, upon reentry to the steady flow of traffic, you found yourself assessing your surroundings far differently than you had at first blush. You noticed one vendor was attempting to sell vambraces not entirely dissimilar to what the Mandalorian himself wore, but instead of pure beskar steel, even from a distance you could tell that they were clearly coated in a pewter-colored paint. Another merchant had heavy, locked cases at his station, and he scanned the surrounding area shiftily before opening one for a prospective customer. You immediately recognized the burnt orange powder encased in several small, glass vials suspended in the case – you had seen many larger containers with that material trundled onto freighters back on Ganthel. The realization struck you then that this was not merely a densely populated limb extending far out from Coronet City, but a bustling, thriving black market likely nestled amongst Corellia’s largest crime syndicates.</p><p>The Mandalorian had maintained a slow, even pace while you trudged alongside him, and the effect it had on those around you proved more staggering than you had observed earlier: two humans merely stood and looked on in awe, while an azure Twi’lek passing by appraised him thoughtfully, toyed with the end of one of her lekku, and then winked none too subtly at him with a wide smile. Your brow rose as you eyed him carefully, but if there had been a reaction at all to the flirtatious gesture, the helmet gave absolutely no indication of it. By this point, it had become impossible to ignore the fact that none of the attention was focused on you: your presence was completely disregarded alongside the beskar-armored bounty hunter, eyes passing over you merely in transit to assess your armor-clad partner. Your earlier encounter with the scrumrat had now sufficiently aroused your vigilance, and now the mere association with the level of attention that the Mandalorian attracted had begun to deeply discomfort you.</p><p>Though you were grateful for the protection the Mandalorian had afforded you, you felt distinctly uneasy. You had always prided yourself on how acutely attuned to your surroundings you were, and you considered yourself to be an able fighter. You had especially worked to develop and rigorously train a keen attentiveness that had usually allowed you to evade a fight before it could even begin. Why had that ability failed you now? More importantly, did the bounty hunter now look upon you as a liability?</p><p>About thirty meters from the alley you had exited, the Mandalorian had led you both to a small stall, manned by a jade skinned Neimoidian dressed in tattered brown robes. At their table were stacks of ration packs, and after a few minutes of negotiation, the bag the Mandalorian had brought with him was appropriately filled. You resumed your journey back to the ship: time stretched on for several uncomfortable minutes without a single word exchanged. There was something stifling about the circumstance, for though you had truthfully never known quite what to make of the Mandalorian since you first met him, you seemingly grew only more perplexed the more time you spent in the bounty hunter’s company. He was undoubtedly a walking weapons arsenal, but you suspected that this enigma encased in beskar had secrets well beyond what you were capable of envisaging. Long ago, you had been told still waters ran deep – before you could restrain the thought, you pondered now if anyone had ever taken a dive into his.</p><p>To break the silence, you finally piped up, “That scrumrat – what did you make of him?”</p><p>Without turning to face you, he continued his even pace and answered matter-of-factly, “He had been tracking us since we entered the main street.”</p><p>You came to an immediate halt, to which a few passersby rudely swore at you and asked that you keep moving, but you peered at the Mandalorian incredulously. Realizing your footsteps had died away, he stopped, his helmet crooked curiously at you while you crossed your arms tightly, heat surging through you. “And you let him put a knife to my throat?” you inquired, your voice unwavering but indignant. You stiffened as he took a slow step towards you.</p><p>“He was just a <em>kid</em>.” His voice had taken on a distinct edge. You immediately felt uneasy, but you stood your ground.</p><p>“And <em>you </em>put my life on the line.”</p><p>You knew as soon as you let the retort slip that it was an irretrievable mistake. He took another long step forward and almost shortened the distance entirely between you two: the proximity unnerved you as his entire posture hardened, and you suppressed a shudder at the aura of imminent anger you could feel radiating irrepressibly from his towering form.</p><p>“These are <em>children</em> who have been forced into crime,” he stated, every word composed of sharpened ice that pierced and twisted in your chest. “Indoctrinated to believe that to live means to simply survive, and if they can’t prove their worth, they’re left for dead. Or worse, sold off as slaves to the highest bidder. They are <em>not </em>the perpetrators – they are the victims. They know no other way of life.” Your eyes had widened considerably as you were confronted with nothing but a blank canvas of beskar, emotionless in expression, yet his words were afire with a cold fury that made you cower, and for one infinitesimal moment, you wondered if this was the same unsettling, devastating fear that crippled his quarries. Suddenly, you felt overcome with a surge of shame, and though you valiantly suppressed the emotion creeping into your eyes, he had already taken notice of the effort alone. Surprisingly, he took a small step back, sighing heavily, and you noticed his shoulders slump ever so slightly.</p><p>“I would <em>never</em> hurt a child,” he said finally, a quiet, almost desperate tremor intoned in his voice. “But do you really think I’d have let him hurt you, allowed you to be killed on my account?” At this query, your brow furrowed, and an immense weight descended upon your heart as the stark truth dawned on you, plain as the pewter reflection of the beskar staring back at you.</p><p>“I’m afraid I don’t know anything about you.”</p><p>Something changed at that moment – unspoken, and purely intangible, but unambiguous and distressing in its clarity to the both of you in that moment. He did not move, and yet you could feel an unmistakable shift in his demeanor, though you could not possibly put a name to it.</p><p>Then, you felt it: a quiet thrumming at first at the nape of your neck but steadily growing louder, the irrefutable feeling of being watched. At the very same moment, the Mandalorian tilted his head upward and looked beyond you.</p><p>“Dank farrik...” he swore quietly, and your eyes skimmed the environment behind him. It was then that you spotted them: imposing, out of place, and parting the sea of people all around them with an unsettling ease were three men, clothed almost completely in black except for a crimson scarf, roughly twenty meters away but converging on your position in the middle of the crowded street at a gradual, ominous pace. Then, in a whispered, slightly imploring tone, the Mandalorian said, “Whatever happens next, do as I say. Understand?” You stayed frozen in place, simply watching as the distance between you and the dark-garbed men closed steadily, so he added more forcefully, “<em>Do you trust me</em>?”</p><p>Under the stare of his blank visage, now growing more and more cognizant of how much closer the three strangers had gotten, you realized you were left with no other choice: before you could finish nodding in affirmation, the Mandalorian had already grabbed you roughly at your right bicep and sharply moved you both to the left to a wide, crowded side street. You quickly peered to the right and laid eyes on four men identical to those who had been approaching from behind the Mandalorian, and a rush of anxiety flowed through you. The two of you began elbowing your way through the crowd, staying as close to him as you could until he darted down an alley to the right, dragging you along with him and you clumsily adjusted your course, swearing under your breath. It was dark, with a lone opening on the left-hand side, and now unencumbered by throngs of merchants and their customers, the two of you dashed to the juncture and rounded the corner, confronted with a long, wide hallway.</p><p>And there were four more men stationed only five meters down it.</p><p>Without missing a beat, the Mandalorian unholstered his blaster pistol, downing two effortlessly as one converged on him in two long strides, spearing his vibro-lance toward the Mandalorian and forcing him to stagger back. The beskar-clad warrior quickly holstered the blaster and unsheathed the spear at his back, meeting the stranger’s next slice with a resounding <em>clink</em> of metal on metal, while his opponent’s twin quickly rounded on the Mandalorian with his own lance. You pulled your blaster from the holster at your thigh, carefully training your sight on the second foe and squeezing the trigger, watching as a plasma bolt met the man’s forearm. The hit afforded the Mandalorian enough of an opening to strike him with the brunt of the end of his spear squarely in the ribs, and the man groaned loudly, falling to the ground as he clutched his side tightly. You pulled the trigger again and the bolt found where his hand met his ribs, tearing through both and he howled in pain.</p><p>Satisfied that he was incapacitated, you turned your attention back to where you both had entered the alley and the three men from earlier advancing at a frightening pace, unholstering their blasters. A quick look behind you told you that the Mandalorian was finished tangling with his adversary as he now wielded both lance and spear in his hands. You leapt for the nearest cover, and then witnessed as two red-hot plasma bolts landed on the Mandalorian’s beskar pauldron and vest. You stole a glance from behind your crate, aiming for one of the triplets and firing two shots, one which missed while the other hit your foe square in the chest, and he crumpled to the ground. Meanwhile, you watched as the Mandalorian juggled both of his opponents masterfully: he had crossed the spear and lance and captured the wrist of one of the two, closing the distance between the two weapons such that the man cried out, his wrist falling limp at his side, and then the warrior landed a sharp kick at the man’s partner, who then tumbled to the ground. He tossed the lance to the side, smoothly spinning the beskar spear in hand, then taking it in both and thrusting it with deadly accuracy into the center of the man’s chest.</p><p>Uneased as you were by the ruthless display you had just witnessed, you stepped out as the Mandalorian sheathed his spear. The two of you merely stared at one another, until you heard two loud <em>thuds </em>behind you, and he yelled, “<em>Drop!</em>” You heeded his command and landed sprawled out on the ground, watching as he drew his blaster with an unsettling efficiency and heard two resulting <em>thumps</em> that signaled that both of his shots had successfully found their targets. You scrambled to your feet, nodding appreciatively at the warrior before realizing that there were yet another three men that had just rounded the corner of the alley.</p><p>“<em>Behind you!</em>” you both shouted simultaneously, and you then both followed the exclamation with a crisp expletive as the realization dawned on you that you were now sandwiched in the alley by more mysterious, black-clad men. The Mandalorian maneuvered past you and you both aligned yourselves back-to-back. The men before you were advancing steadily, two armed with what looked to be short, blunt looking vibroswords and the other with a blaster pistol. You shot at him thrice, one of the bolts hitting him in the meat of his thigh and the other at his shoulder, and you attempted to shoot at one of the other two, but he lazily blocked the shot with a flick of his sword, forcing you to rapidly shuffle to avoid the rebounded plasma bolt. You suddenly felt a wave of heat overcome your body and a <em>whoosh</em> resound from behind you, but rather than stop to process either sensation, you leaned down to reach for the vibro-blade in your boot and sent it flying almost immediately. You watched as the blade spun rapidly in mid-air several times before burying itself in the stomach of one of your two assailants.</p><p>The other peered over briefly at his fallen comrade, and the bloodlust that overcame him was instantly evident. He outright charged, and before you fully thought the maneuver through, you kicked out your legs and slid on the ground underneath his sword, sweeping out with your right leg forcefully enough to knock the assailant on his back. Before you could scramble back up to your feet, you felt a large, callused hand painfully encase your dominant forearm, grasping tightly and twisting your limb backward as you tried to stand. You cried out, your blaster pistol clattering to the ground and a sharp stab of pain traveling the length of your arm in response to the unnatural rotation as you found yourself on your back, head roughly hitting the pavement. A throbbing wave surged through your skull and your vision blurred, and before you could attempt to force yourself off the ground again, you were suddenly overshadowed by your adversary, who had swung his leg over you and effectively trapped you against the urban floor. You feebly reached for your blaster, believing your fingers were tugging at it as suddenly the reality of the situation became crystal clear to you when your eyes met your assailant: you finally comprehended that he had pulled a jagged knife from a hilt at his waist, the blade about to drop –</p><p>Then a plasma bolt pierced through his head, and he limply slumped to the side, the knife clattering to the ground beside you.</p><p>Your breathing was ragged and your vision bleary as you stared up at the sliver of grey horizon far above you, adrenaline flowing through you and your heart pounding in your ears. The Mandalorian stepped forward, blankly appraising you as you simply gaped back at him. He holstered his blaster and offered his gloved hand, and you took it, dumbstruck and feeling the weight of the body slip off of you as the warrior ably pulled you up to your feet. Still reeling from your head hitting the pavement earlier, you rubbed the point of impact and assessed the environment around you, counting the bodies strewn across the alley before giving up the endeavor as the steadily growing number made you feel ill.</p><p>“Who the hell <em>are </em>they?” you asked, astonished, as the Mandalorian silently crouched and examined the body nearest to him, while you bent down and retrieved your KYD-21 and vibro-blade from your victim, regretting the maneuver instantaneously as you rose back up, severely dizzied. Meanwhile, the warrior turned out the man’s pockets before seemingly laying eyes on something of curiosity, promptly flipping over the deceased assailant’s wrist. He drew a sharp breath, but as your view was blocked, you creased your forehead in confusion and then followed with another question: “What is it?”</p><p>He moved aside and presented his discovery to you. From this distance, you could not tell if it was a dark brown, circular tattoo, or a branding on the man’s wrist. You moved closer to analyze it, narrowing your eyes; it looked vaguely familiar to you, as you hazily recalled seeing it somewhere before, but the significance of the symbol was completely lost on you. You shrugged, so he offered clarification: “It’s the mark of Crimson Dawn.”</p><p>You shook your head, still perplexed – an action that you rued almost instantaneously as a sloshing sensation overtook your skull – so he continued: “They’re a crime syndicate, prevalent in the Outer Rim but they have roots across the galaxy. They were once known for enslaving entire colonies and forcing them to mine in regions rich with illicit resources.” Your eyes widened slightly at the mention of mining as it then immediately clicked in your mind where you had seen the emblem before.</p><p>“On Ganthel, I remember seeing pilots who had that symbol tattooed on their neck,” you shared quietly. “They were spicers, masking their cargo by picking up kelerium shipments for export.” You looked over the body again and noticed another detail, which you quickly pointed to and added, “The scrumrat had a scarf that color. Do you think – ”</p><p>“We need to leave. Now.” You nodded in agreement, and the two of you rose, one far more hastily than the other as you groggily found your feet. The Mandalorian scanned the area before gesturing for you to follow him, and you both proceeded down the alley, reaching a juncture that led you back to the side street you had turned onto originally. Before stepping out, the Mandalorian pressed himself against one side of the alley and peered out, then behind him and towards the alley across, guarding the blaster at his hip with his hand and waving the other in the direction of the other alley before quietly saying, “This way.”</p><p>You swiftly moved through the crowd to the narrow side street opposite, traversing a confounding maze of shadowy corridors, and in your increasingly vacant state, it took you a very long, glassy-eyed appraisal of your surroundings before you realized he had led you both back to the main street, the hangar entrance to your immediate right. You absently wondered how he had known what route to take, but it was at that moment that you finally realized that to expend any energy attempting to understand the Mandalorian’s behavior was an extremely draining and ultimately fruitless endeavor, even in a far more sober state. You were simply grateful that he was taking you back to the security of your ship, and that not long from now, you would be many, <em>many</em> parsecs away from this dangerous, industrialized burrow of bandits, murderers, and swindlers.</p><p>In a matter of minutes, you were crossing the wide expanse of the hangar, your senses dulled, but you still felt several pairs of prying eyes passing over both you and the Mandalorian, whose obscenely long strides were severely challenging the vertigo you had been experiencing ever since your tumble in the alley. Still, you stayed silent, enduring and mustering as much of your remaining energy as you could with what strength you had left. As you both finally reached the dock, the sea breeze capturing your loosening braid and the taste of salt finding your lips, you laid eyes upon your ship, the pale grey of the setting sun glinting off the steel hull, and you breathed a sigh of relief: at that exact moment, there was no sight in the galaxy that could possibly compete with its beauty. You scanned for the tan, diminutive humanoid who you had originally tasked your ship with, and you found him once again tinkering with the flailing mechanic droid from earlier. Before you could even conceive of the energy to do so, the Mandalorian quickly strode over to the alien, and he immediately jumped at the sight of the beskar-armored warrior.</p><p>“Is it ready?” he asked firmly, and the docking agent nodded his head vigorously, visibly shaken, and the Mandalorian turned wordlessly back to you. The sensation of having come to a stop had rendered your knees on the verge of collapse, and sensing your impending fall, the Mandalorian swiftly captured you in one of his arms, strong but carefully yielding to your body’s slow, delirious movement. “Come on, we’re almost there,” he encouraged, his tone calm, bordering on gentle, and you let him lead you as you staggered along, feeling drunk on the pain that pulsed in your temples. Once you assumed that you were close enough, you weakly pressed the green triangle at your wrist to drop the ramp to your ship. It descended with a soft <em>hiss</em>, and the two of you moved gradually up the steel gangplank, your feet progressively dragging more the further you were forced to travel, and as soon as you were inside, you raised the ramp with another press of your finger as you began to feel your legs limpen considerably, as if the mere recognition of being in a familiar environment was enough to convince them that they were no longer a necessity.</p><p>“Hey, stay with me,” the Mandalorian reproached softly, lifting your arm over his shoulder and placing a gloved hand at your waist to pull you up, your limbs at this point so loose that they were now merely dead weight. Wary of how cramped the entrance to the cockpit was, the warrior managed to slowly maneuver you both through the doorway, and then dropped you as gingerly as he could into the passenger’s seat. You made a pathetic and incredibly ill-advised attempt to rise from the chair, your head lolling with a swimming sensation with the effort, but he gently pushed you back and then hurriedly strapped you into your seat.</p><p>“Stay put, I’ll get us into hyperspace – I can’t promise that it’s going to feel pleasant, but just try and lean back.” The suggestion was not a particularly difficult one to follow as your vision grew more and more bleary, and any attempt made to concentrate merely brought into sharp focus the intense pounding in your head. Somewhere in your mind, it finally processed that the Mandalorian was settling himself into your pilot seat; off in the distance, you thought you heard yourself weakly protesting, but before you could determine if you were in fact vocalizing your dissent or the voice was just ricocheting dully within your skull, your eyelids abruptly drooped, and everything faded to black.</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Pilot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You felt like you had gone up against a Wookiee and lost.</p><p>Badly.</p><p>Your eyes fluttered open, and you immediately regretted it as the subsequent feeling that pervaded your skull was something akin to being repeatedly stricken with a sledgehammer. You squeezed your eyes shut in the feeble hope that the resulting darkness would soothe the pounding ache that had taken up residence between your temples, covering them with your palms and rubbing gently, but the effort was useless as you weakly tried to suppress a yawn.</p><p>“You’re awake.”</p><p>The deep, modulated baritone gently roused your senses, and you groaned, low and slow. You took in a long, deep breath, and made another attempt to open your eyes, this one marginally more successful than the last. “Sadly, yes,” you answered groggily. The cabin slowly revealed itself to you, and you saw beyond the window of the cockpit that the ship was still in hyperspace, traveling through deep, sapphire swirls and beams of white. The Mandalorian was seated at the helm, arms loosely crossed, and you forced an effort to stifle your annoyance at his level of comfort in your pilot’s chair.</p><p>“How’re you feeling?” he asked, voice mild, but you detected a note of something else swimming in its depths. You thought at first about levying something sarcastic, a biting remark pointedly tossed in his direction, but you lacked the energy required for the task.</p><p>“I’ve been better,” you finally said simply. Then, timidly, “How long was I asleep?”</p><p>“About two days,” came the brief reply, and your eyebrows met your hairline as you blinked widely.</p><p>“Two<em> days?</em>” Somehow, that piece of information alone exhausted you greatly. You sighed, your body aching dully, but you rose resolutely, albeit on wobbly legs. “Let me take over for the remainder.” The Mandalorian turned around in the pilot’s chair and leaned on the console, his body language betraying an air of incredulity, perhaps even amusement as he cocked his helmet at you curiously, but you doubled your resolve while grasping firmly at the passenger’s handle.</p><p>“There’s no need. You suffered a concussion. Rest.”</p><p>You stiffened under his gaze; determined, you tried again with a more authoritative note in your voice. “I don’t need any more rest, I’ll be fine.”</p><p>You heard a small exhalation of exasperation pass through the modulator of the helmet, but you maintained a glare until finally he rose from the chair with a thinly veiled reluctance. You knew you were being stubborn, but your injury certainly did not warrant the Mandalorian’s pity. You staggered slightly as you swerved past him and settled yourself in the chair, comforted by the way it molded to your body, and then assessed the navigational panel: about another two hours until you reached Tatooine. You heard the Mandalorian sink into the passenger’s seat behind you, and you would have happily let the silence settle in, but a sudden thought crossed your mind.</p><p>“This friend of yours on Tatooine – how do you know them exactly?”</p><p>There was a notable pause preceding his reply. “She did me a favor once,” he answered shortly. You considered his response thoughtfully for a moment. There was an unmistakable tension hidden in the brevity of his reply, but you chose to avoid inquiring about it and contemplated another possible angle.</p><p>“By delivering me to her, are you...returning that favor?” you asked, more hesitantly this time. Another pause that lasted a beat too long to be regarded as trivial.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Silence swiftly replaced what little conversation had been exchanged, so you shifted in your seat somewhat uncomfortably. You chewed over your words for a moment before offering reticently, “You know, if you want to, you can rest. I’ll wake you before we reach Tatooine.”</p><p>“I’m fine,” he replied curtly.</p><p>“Have some rations then.”</p><p>“I’m not hungry.”</p><p>You sighed, before turning around and furrowing your brow at the Mandalorian, asking pointedly, “Are you human?” His helmet cocked rather forcefully in your direction, and somehow, you had ascended to a whole new level of uncomfortable silence. Was he...offended?</p><p>Eventually, you resolved to double down on the point. “Unless there’s really a droid buried underneath all that beskar, then I’m afraid you’re still a man who needs food and rest.” Almost imperceptibly, the tension seemed to fade from his posture, as if the words had curiously evaporated whatever rigidity was housed in his heavily armored frame. Your features softened, and you offered him a slight, sly smile as a wordless reply.</p><p>“Rest,” you directed, silently challenging him with an even gaze. He merely crossed his arms, but you took it as a victory on your part. Perhaps the score was finally in your favor.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Tatooine was a barren hellscape, constantly buried by wave upon wave of coarse, oceanic sand and routinely set ablaze by twin suns. It was predominantly desolate, with a handful of settlements scattered haphazardly across its dunes and innumerable moisture farms between these principal spaceports. You had never cared for desert planets, the way the wind carried gritty grains of sand that embedded themselves in your skin, which became almost incurably dry and peeled upon baking in the unyielding, scorching sunlight. It always seemed impossible to keep cool, even when hooding your features and shielding your arms and chest from the suns’ harsh, blistering gaze. Perhaps worse yet about this endeavor was docking in the heart of Mos Eisley, which was renowned for its criminality; then again, most planets you had ventured to had possessed some shadowy underbelly, and Corellia’s reputation was arguably worse than Tatooine’s, so you supposed that the only question left to ponder then was how this particular port compared to those places you had visited previously.</p><p>As you engaged the reverse thrusters and descended upon Hangar 3-5, you peered behind you to find the Mandalorian upright in his seat, considerably stiffer than he had been when you last looked. You chose not to comment, and instead kept your focus on deftly maneuvering your ship into the hangar bay. Your ship landed with a slight stuttering of the thrusters, and you quickly restricted the fuel flow and shut off the engines, then surveyed the hangar through the window of the cockpit. Perhaps the politest descriptor for the bay was that it was...cluttered. There were tools strewn across the desert floor that composed the hangar, and several clumsy mechanic droids wandered about aimlessly, limbs flailing wildly at the sight of your vessel as if they possessed no clue as to how it had gotten there. The level of apparent disorganization unsettled you: you had always prided yourself on maintaining any workspace you inherited to a relatively high standard, but this...</p><p>This was absolute chaos.</p><p>As you stepped out of the pilot’s seat, you undid the loose plait that hung limply at your neck, and quickly swept your hair into a wavy ponytail, then searched your pockets for your gloves, and slid both of them over your hands. The Mandalorian had risen from his station, and the two of you exchanged a nod as he led you out of the cabin into the cargo hold, upon which point you lowered the rear hatch with a touch of a button on your wrist. The hatch <em>hissed </em>appreciably in response, steam billowing out into the open hangar. As you and the warrior descended the gangplank, much to your dismay, the blistering suns immediately embraced your features and reflected almost blindingly off the steel-grey of the Mandalorian’s beskar helmet. As unbearably hot as it felt for you, you wondered absently how uncomfortable the bounty hunter was, burdened as he was by his pure beskar pauldrons and chest plate and a dark brown tunic that hid every inch of skin, and for that moment you decided to be grateful. As you squinted and tried to blink away the flashes of his armor, your brow quirked at the sight of a short woman, with a head of tightly wound, dark curls, and a stern, tanned face. The immediacy of her pace was remarkable for her stature and proved surprisingly effectual at unsettling you.</p><p>“You have some nerve coming back here, Mando,” she said frenetically as she strode towards him with the buzzing energy of an irate wasp.</p><p>“You say that every time,” he replied evenly, his hands framing his hips.</p><p>“Whatever it is you want from me, you’re not getting it,” she huffed, crossing her arms resolutely, before her eyes fell on your ship, puzzlement evident in her tone as she asked, “And what happened to your old piece of junk?”</p><p>“I don’t want anything,” he clarified quickly, evading her query and waving his hands in a gesture of goodwill. “But I brought someone who I thought could be of some help to you.”</p><p>With his words, she finally acknowledged your presence. She appraised you with a distinctly contemptuous stare, so you matched her posture to project an air of defiance. She was looking you over from the side when she then leaned in the Mandalorian’s direction.</p><p>“What’s her story?” the woman asked suspiciously. You were rather offended that she had deliberately bypassed you in favor of consulting the Mandalorian, but you chided yourself with a bite of your tongue, tapering your growing exasperation.</p><p>“She doesn’t need a story so long as she’s better than your droids.” The deflection on his part elicited an eyebrow raise from you, but he ignored you, staring straight ahead at the diminutive mechanic as you scanned him closely for any sign of recognition, but to no avail.</p><p>The woman scoffed. “Are you kidding? Anything is better than one of those mobile scrapheaps. Try again.”</p><p>“Way to sell me,” you finally cut in sarcastically with a pointed look at the Mandalorian, and then you extended a hand to the frenzied woman. “Just call me Z. I just got out of a three-month-long contract maintaining corporate freighters and privateer vessels out of a shipyard on Ganthel.” Out of your field of view, you sensed a curious glance in your direction, but you stubbornly disregarded it.</p><p>“Ganthel, huh?” she said, eying you critically without uncrossing her arms. You loosely dropped your hand to your side. “That’s spicer territory.”</p><p>“I assure you that I never involved myself in any impropriety.”</p><p>“Then how did you end up with him?” she said accusatorily, jabbing a thumb in the Mandalorian’s direction. You shot the bounty hunter a dark look.</p><p>“Let’s just say I didn’t have any input on the matter,” you gritted out, your eyes still sharp as daggers staring at the Mandalorian next to you. Naturally, he remained completely still in response to the provocation: you wondered just how many buttons you would have to press to educe signs of life from the almost mechanical warrior. She looked between the two of you, eyes narrowed in suspicion, but then she shrugged.</p><p>“Alright, kid,” she said, straightening up – a rather feeble show of authority, in your opinion, given you had several inches on her. Still, your features hardened considerably at the epithet. It felt condescending, and even if unintentionally so, she had not yet earned your respect such that you were willing to contend with nicknames. “How would I go about repairing a faulty hyperdrive motivator?”</p><p>You frowned. Not because it was a difficult question to answer; rather, to have it asked of you felt like an insult to your intelligence. It was, at least by your approximation, standard work expected of a qualified mechanic. Assuming she was simply testing your basic knowledge of ship mechanics, you decided to play along. “Disconnect all other hyperdrive components, and then flood it constantly with water to shield against radiation,” you elaborated speedily, your tone flat. “Assuming the particle accelerator is the issue, from there you can course-correct the particle beam by just doing an EMF realignment.” Her jaw visibly twitched in response, a reaction that yielded an innocent, self-satisfied smirk from you.</p><p>“Okay, okay, that was an easy question,” she said, waving her hands impatiently.</p><p>“I would agree.” Barely audible though it may have been, you could have sworn you heard the smallest exhale of amusement emerge from the Mandalorian beside you. The woman was far less entertained by your acerbity.</p><p>“What’s the purpose of an inertial dampener?”</p><p>It took every conceivable ounce of strength in you not to roll your eyes. Instead, you bit rather piercingly into your bottom lip in a valiant attempt at suppressing the incredulous obscenity perched on the precipice of your tongue. To spare yourself further torturous conversation, you employed a different tact. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but...” you began diplomatically. “I worked as a mechanic for a podracing team on Malastare for over a year.” This earned you a look of utter disbelief from one party and what you interpreted as an inquisitive head tilt from the other.</p><p>“<em>You?</em> Any self-respecting Dug would have thrown you off the planet before they let you touch their machine.”</p><p>“Not if my work won them every race they entered,” you retorted quietly, before unconsciously rocking on your heel nervously. Pride in your abilities was not unnatural for you, but boasting – even when undeniably called for – was.</p><p>She kept staring at you, arms still crossed, features taut, and jaw twitching. You continued to shift uncomfortably on the spot, and in your anxious state, you acquainted yourself with a particular jagged rock resting adjacent to your right foot.</p><p>“Okay!” she suddenly exclaimed, waving her arms out while you jerked at the sharp outcry. “Okay, okay, <em>fine</em>. You’ve earned yourself a <em>temporary</em> job.” You extended your hand again, and she took it with a brief, vigorous shake. “I’m Peli. If I catch you slacking, you can try your luck working with the Jawas. Got it?” You nodded your understanding, stealing a quick glance at the Mandalorian, who was still as blank as ever. As if remembering all of a sudden that he was still standing there, Peli quirked a brow at the warrior, arms akimbo.</p><p>“Hey, where’s the little womp rat?”</p><p>Your brow rose sharply as you observed the Mandalorian stiffen considerably at the question.</p><p>The reply was quick and cutting like a knife. “Gone.” He swept past Peli, his cape fluttering in the hot breeze, and she simply gaped at him.</p><p>“Gone? What do you mean <em>gone</em>?” she spluttered incredulously as she followed after him, and you remained where you were rather dumbly. You were unaware of the circumstances, so you thought it prudent to remain where you were.</p><p>“It’s none of your business.”</p><p>“I <em>babysat </em>the kid while you went off on your hunt, what do you mean it’s – ”</p><p>“<em>Not. Another. Word.</em>” His tone was deadly as he whirled around, a trigger finger pointed threateningly at her. It was a ruthless, inimitable growl, unlike anything you had heard emerge from the bounty hunter, and though you were not the recipient of his ire, you froze in place. You had watched this warrior juggle several combatants simultaneously, slickly maneuver through conversations with irrevocable consequences, and deal with scheming, greedy lowlifes. As a bystander to all of those encounters, you had never felt entirely fearful of him – intimidated, unquestionably, but never frightened. Yet, you cowered now. Perhaps it was indicative of feeling like an intruder, accidentally overstepping a boundary you had not conceived of until the line had been crossed, or it was the recognition of the emotional weight overshadowed by his words. What was it that could possibly electrify him into such lethality?</p><p>Peli tugged you out of your rumination with her shrieky tone as you realized that the Mandalorian had long since exited the hangar. “What happened to the brat, huh? Are you the reason the kid’s gone?” You stared, attempting to process what she had said with whatever mental energy you had left to expend. Kid? Had she said...<em>kid</em>?</p><p>“He’d <em>never </em>have given it up without good reason, so are you it? Or has he just taken to collecting strays?” At those words, you jolted back into cognition and you rediscovered the power of speech, a fresh wave of anger washing over you.</p><p>“Look, I don’t know anything about that man,” you replied tersely, bristling at her suggestion and pointing forcefully in the direction of where the Mandalorian had left the hangar. “I don’t know what kid you’re talking about, but if what you’re saying is true, I am <em>not </em>one of his goddamned strays. He was the one that stowed himself aboard <em>my</em> ship, and we’ve been stuck with each other ever since. Clear on that?” For the second time in a matter of minutes, Peli gawked.</p><p>“He was <em>your </em>stowaway?” she asked exclamatorily, to which you nodded mechanically. She shook her head in disbelief, hands settling on her hips. “And no kid in sight, huh?”</p><p>“What <em>kid</em>?” You knew it was a pressing, intrusive question as soon as you voiced it, brusque for you to ask and inappropriate for her to answer, but you imagined you would find out sooner or later: Peli did not strike you as someone proficient at guarding the vault. She looked you over again, eyes narrowing and forehead creasing, and you crossed your arms tightly, your ire steadily rising the longer she stared at you. You were somewhat pleased to watch her shrivel slightly under your glare, and eventually she conceded.</p><p>“It’s not my business to share, <em>but...</em>” she said quickly, gesturing with both palms outward – <em>but you’re going to tell me anyway</em>, you thought. “He used to have this little green, pointy-eared baby with him. Didn’t let the kid out of his sight much if he could help it, but he did trust me with it. I don’t know what it would have taken for him to give it up, but with the way he was about that kid, I can’t imagine that whatever happened, he handled it very well.” You slipped into a daze as you attempted to process what she was saying. The Mandalorian had...a <em>baby</em>? Moreover, he had actually entrusted another person with it? The mental effort required to reconcile this newly revealed reality with what you had observed thus far about the Mandalorian proved much more than you had anticipated, so you resolved to let the thought slip away for a moment.</p><p>“How long did he have the kid for?” you finally asked, curiosity getting the better of you.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Peli replied, biting her lip. “But he treated it like his own blood.” You stared in the direction of the hangar’s exit, contemplative. The thought still baffled you: the Mandalorian had once had a child. Did he really encompass that kind of duality, a warrior capable of unspeakable brutality, yet also a father figure, a protector? Your mind flashed back to the bounty hunter dispensing of your attacker in the alleyway back on Corellia. It had not occurred to you until that moment that protection was decidedly uncharacteristic of men of his occupation, but then again, you had both agreed to a deal. If what you had long understood about Mandalorian legend was in fact true, then he was bound by his honor code to ensure your safety. It had been strictly business – a confounding form of it, but still business nonetheless.</p><p>“Where did he say he was going?” you finally asked.</p><p>“Didn’t,” she answered, perplexed. You felt drawn to the hangar exit, a part of you suddenly determined to follow –</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>Peli’s shriek jolted you from your reverie. “You’ve got work to do, kid, and I’m not paying you to stand around daydreaming about the Mandalorian, alright?” She gestured for you to trail her to her office; as your steps fell into rhythm with hers, you clenched your jaw tightly, and silently damned the blazing, Tatooine suns for the heat spreading through your features.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>By day’s end, you were completely exhausted. Peli, true to her word, had a surprising amount of work for you: you spent the majority of your day meticulously scrubbing each and every scattered tool in the hangar bay, and after moving your ship to an abandoned hangar early in your shift, you found yourself servicing four different vessels over the course of eight hours. The calluses on your hands had reemerged in full force, and your back was riddled with quiet, familiar aches. Your clientele had been largely unremarkable – undeniably criminal, by your approximation – but they paid you generously, and given there were no New Republic officers anywhere in the vicinity to give you grief for accepting their credits, you had no complaints.</p><p>As the horizon took on a warm, purple hue, you wagered the twin suns were finally setting, and you stretched, slowly easing the tension from your limbs. Your eyes scanned Peli’s office, where you saw she was reclining lazily in her chair, peering over a binder: your mind almost absently wandered to memories of Crete, who you often found lounging in much the same way. You strode to doorway, rapping your knuckles forcefully to announce your presence.</p><p>“What do you want, kid?” she said absently, her eyes still trained on the binder in her hands.</p><p>“Anything else you need me to take care of?” you inquired, leaning on the doorway nonchalantly and silently appreciative of the cool stone of the archway against your aching, sunbaked skin. You were positive that you had gone several shades darker for the one day spent in the open-ceilinged hangar, and for all its faults, a part of you missed the cold, dark docking area you had grown accustomed to on Ganthel.</p><p>“We’ve got one more customer,” she replied tensely. “He’s one of my regulars – always comes in late, said he’d be here in a couple of hours.” She put down the binder and then trained her eyes on you, appraising you carefully. “I’ll let you off until then. You worked hard today.” You offered a slight smile.</p><p>“Thanks, Peli,” you said appreciatively.</p><p>“Just be back in two hours. Got it?” Her tone was rough, but you sensed something softer beneath the surface, not unlike a grizzled, grumpy Ugnaught you once knew.</p><p>“Got it.”</p><p>You turned around and felt a dull ache in your stomach that signaled hunger you had not fully realized until then. Then, suddenly, recognition of the fact that you had not seen the Mandalorian since his sudden exit from the hangar that morning dawned on you. Cognizant of the blaster pistol still in your holster and the vibroblade tucked inconspicuously into your boot, you reasoned that after grappling with scrumrats in Corellia, venturing into Mos Eisley was a calculated risk, and so you proceeded through the exit of the hangar, wrapping your scarf like a makeshift hood to shadow your features.</p><p>The first thing that aroused your senses was the smell that lingered upon the air: it was a foul odor, reminiscent of cooked, rotted meat mingling with smoke. You wrinkled your nose at the sensation, distracting yourself by assessing the short, domed buildings, composed of pale limestone and lined one after the other on either side of the street. You felt a pair of beady, leering eyes belonging to a passing Rodian trace your form, and your fingers absentmindedly hovered at your thigh as you continued more rapidly towards the cantina positioned at the end of the lane. You glanced to your right, and your heart lodged in your throat: a battalion of staffs and long, crooked sticks, protruding from the ground, and at the head of each a stormtrooper’s helmet rested lopsidedly. You swallowed thickly, forcefully pulling yourself away as you made for the entrance of the cantina.</p><p>You were greeted immediately with a cacophony of noise, ricocheting off of every surface in the bar, which was brimming with both people of all species and alcohol of all kinds. There was a band, playing painfully off-key in the center of the room but with a sizable crowd surrounding them, still applauding their attempts at music; off in the shadiest corner, a group of Ithorians, hopelessly engrossed in an intense game of sabacc; and table after table was crowded, but in a booth farthest from the entrance, you spotted him, solemn and rendered completely unreadable by the smooth beskar of his helmet. You recognized he was in conversation with a woman of stern beauty, her dark hair tightly wound in a braid threaded with red cording; a surge of curiosity coursed through you, and yet even amidst feeling the eyes of at least a dozen different prying customers appraising you and your presence in the bar, there was no gaze you felt more strongly than his as you took notice of his helmet tilted ever so slightly in your direction.</p><p>As if on cue, the woman rose from the table, but the Mandalorian remained seated. She made her way towards the entrance to the cantina, sweeping effortlessly through the crowd, and you suddenly became very aware of the magnetism of her presence relative to yours as head after head turned in her direction: she was dressed in an ebony tunic, wearing knee-high boots and gloves each accented with orange stripes, and upon sweeping past you, she gave you a raised brow and a smirk that sent a shiver down your spine. You then curiously locked eyes again with the beskar-clad warrior at the end of the cantina, striding towards the booth through the sea of drunken patrons before finally settling yourself opposite the Mandalorian.</p><p>“Didn’t strike me as the type to entertain in a place like this,” you said slyly, and he tilted his helmet at you. You imagined his eyes regarding you narrowly from behind his T-visor, and against better judgment, you took pleasure in the idea of stirring that kind of reaction in the warrior.</p><p>“How was your first day?” he asked casually, but his body was still palpably taut. You smiled tightly.</p><p>“Long,” you replied tiredly, absently presenting your callused hands as demonstration. “But it’s easy work. Nothing I haven’t done a few thousand times before.” You had not intended for the last of your words to sound bitter, but as you peered around the cantina, you had grown increasingly mindful of the fact that every server in the bar was occupied. Something about the wealth of sound in the cantina overwhelmed you, and the tension evident in your companion’s posture kept you on edge. You had not realized how much you truly needed a drink until you had entered a building practically overflowing with spirits.</p><p>“How long have you worked as a mechanic?”</p><p>The question shook you out of your focus on the bar and immediately caught you off guard. For the time you had known the Mandalorian – which, by your count, had been less than a week, including the two days during which you had been asleep – you had not exchanged pleasantries with him. The time spent on your ship had primarily been reserved for rest as well as actively suppressing any amiable conversation, given you had still been predominantly bitter over him embroiling you in his fugitive status, while your time on Corellia had been spent with the two of you being hotly pursued by criminals. As nonchalantly as it had been spoken, this was not a casual question by any stretch.</p><p>“Awhile now,” you answered coyly. “Just picked up odd job after odd job to keep busy, stay fed.”</p><p>“Worked on Malastare just to ‘stay fed’?” he posited. You smiled crookedly – he had paid closer attention than he had let on clearly.</p><p>“Well, I had my fun, too,” you replied with a smirk. “I worked on a few crafts. Raced some, too.”</p><p>“Raced? That’s unheard of for a human.”</p><p>“So I was told. A few tried before me and after, but they didn’t have as much luck as I did, I suppose.” A quiet settled between you and the Mandalorian, and you avoided the blank, unblinking stare of his T-visor by searching the cantina once more for an unoccupied server droid. You were overjoyed when you managed to successfully summon one over to your booth, and it rolled excitedly towards you and spoke in chipper, amiable tones. You ordered a mug of spotchka, while unsurprisingly your stony counterpart refused to order a drink. When the server droid returned with your mug, you wasted no time in sipping copiously at the effervescent blue beverage, slightly sweet and tingly on your tongue while its warmth spread through your insides immediately.</p><p>“Peli seems to think you collect strays,” you stated suddenly, stealing a small glance up at the quiet, statuesque warrior opposite you. You toyed with the mug in your hands momentarily as you could feel him gazing at you intently, attempting to unearth the answer to whatever riddle you were offering as if it might be buried somewhere deep in your eyes, but this time you resolutely mirrored the blankness of his visage.</p><p>“She thinks a lot of things,” he replied shortly, scanning the cantina absently. He had broken the stare, and it had not gone unnoticed by you.</p><p>“Tends to voice a lot of those thoughts, too,” you said quietly, and almost instantaneously, his head violently snapped in your direction, and heat flowed freely through your features. The sudden firmness of the Mandalorian’s armored body indicated that a tangible, almost electric anger had surged through him in response.</p><p>“Anything she tells you is <em>not </em>hers to share,” he countered frigidly, and the iciness of his tone caused you to drop your eyes, searching for a rejoinder, or perhaps even an apology in the sparkling depths of the beverage you were cupping with both hands. A chilly silence descended between you as he seemed to determinedly ignore your presence and you became fixated with your spotchka, yet neither one of you made any attempt to leave, as if sharing an almost unbearable silence was somehow preferable to being left alone with yourselves. Finally – amidst another resounding, drunken round of applause for the cantina band – the right words emerged.</p><p>“I was born on Raydonia.”</p><p>For the second time that evening, his helmet swung in your direction. You refrained from smiling, but you offered a peace treaty with your eyes as you continued. “My mother had been one of the lone survivors of a massacre that happened there, decades ago. Almost everyone else in the settlement died. My father...he always said she was a shell of herself afterwards.” You paused, swallowing thickly for a moment as your gaze grew unfocused. “When she was expecting me, he said it was the first time he had seen her happy in years. Hopeful, even. But then when I was born, he thought maybe she finally succumbed to the survivor’s guilt.” You peered at the Mandalorian with a soft, sad smile before finding his impassive gaze to be too disquieting, so you analyzed the table intently, your hand finding the crystal pendant at your neck and clutching it tightly.</p><p>When you returned your eyes to your companion, you found that the Mandalorian was still a blank canvas; at that moment, something distinctly like fury bubbled inside you, the quiet beginnings of a passive aggression such that you could not find it in you to paint sympathy or even boredom upon the steely, vacant beskar of his helmet. Almost mechanically, you rose from the table, carelessly dropping a few credits on the table as payment for the drink.</p><p>“I better leave, I have another customer coming in,” you announced, almost detachedly, as you reasoned that whatever was playing at the Mandalorian’s features underneath that bucket, you had no need of it.</p><p>Hastily, you began to maneuver your way past table after table, when the reality struck you again just how exorbitantly crowded the cantina was for the evening. Moreover, it occurred to you how significantly more inebriated the patrons had grown since you had first arrived, as the chatter had risen to deafening heights and the band was now being received with exceptional – and decidedly unwarranted – enthusiasm. You were left with no choice but to begin roughly elbowing your way through throngs of people, steering past individuals of a species completely foreign to you, some ghastly to look at and others sending shivers down your spine. You had almost made it to the entrance when you were forcibly pulled back, convinced momentarily that it was the beskar-clad warrior, but you turned to find it was a humanoid customer, practically sloshing where he stood.</p><p>“What’s your rush, beautiful?” he sneered, his grin littered with gaping holes that you had no plans to linger and count. You attempted to shrug him off, but his grip was stronger than his state of sobriety implied, and he simply beamed more widely.</p><p>In truth, the next minute was a complete blur to you. At best, you recollected that your next move was firmly jabbing your elbow into the customer’s nose. You thought you heard him howl in pain as he staggered backwards, but you paid more attention to aligning yourself with his body, grabbing him by both of his shoulders, and then sharply kneeing him in the groin. Before he could collect himself, the buzz at the nape of your neck practically screamed in alert, whirring at far too high of an acceleration for you to ignore. Unthinkingly, you drew your blaster from the holster strapped to your thigh and whirled around to find another fervent patron who had made their approach from behind you. Without hesitation, you squeezed the trigger, and the plasma bolt seared him squarely in his shoulder. He clutched the singed wound, crying out, and before you could give yourself any pause to consider what you had just done, you bolted past your assailant, bumping him roughly in the process. Based on the resounding <em>thud </em>and shattering of glass that came after, you assumed he had tumbled over a table as a result. After that, your memory was white with panic as you had hurriedly holstered your blaster pistol and exited the cantina in a rush, as if your mind had completely surrendered itself to anxiety and your body had resorted to autopilot.</p><p>You at first had thought to seek solace back at your ship, but with the twin suns having already set, you still had the presence of mind to know it was unwise to navigate the shadowy maze of Mos Eisley after dark. Moreover, you had committed to helping Peli with her last customer – which, as you recalled now, you had also pointedly told the Mandalorian before leaving him to his own devices – and as the thought struck you, you realized the opportunity to busy your hands and mind with something mechanical, something physical and ripe for problem solving appealed to you greatly. At what felt like lightning speed, you sprinted back to Hangar 3-5, eager to leave before your attackers suddenly fancied the idea of following you.</p><p>On one hand, the sight of the empty docking bay soothed you, as you were content that Peli was nowhere to be found and you were left with only her clumsy, thrashing pit droids for company, but on the other, you grimaced at the notion you were left purely with your own thoughts for company. Your legs also suddenly felt pounds heavier, muscles aching as the adrenaline rush dissipated, and you drank in one rush of cool, night air after another as your heart began to settle into a less erratic tempo and your mind began to regain its focus. Regrettably, its first immediate target had been the preceding few minutes. Absently, you reached for your neck, searching for the leather cord you so often anxiously twisted around your fingertips, and your heart dropped: where was it? Your hands frantically searched your chest, your pockets, your jacket – nothing. <em>Nothing</em>.</p><p>“I think you dropped this.”</p><p>The words were soft, like the first few raindrops in a summer storm, and you whirled around with inimitable reflexes, hand hovering over your thigh holster, only to be greeted with the sight of the Mandalorian. Tall, broad, and distinctly unbothered, with your necklace dangling from his gloved fingertips and the crystal catching the amber glow of the lone lantern by the entrance to the hangar, he was completely silent standing before you, while your heartbeat hammered loudly in your ears. You swallowed the lump that had lodged in your throat, relaxing the hand at your side, but an inexplicable tension still resided in your shoulders. You took a couple of reluctant steps in his direction before reaching almost nervously for the pendant in his hand, cradling the crystal in your palm as he dropped his wrist. A warmth spread in your chest: you could not decide if it was as a result of having reclaimed one of the few prized possessions you owned, or that the warrior before you had taken close enough notice of its loss that he resolved to return it to its owner.</p><p>“You left quite the mess in your wake,” the Mandalorian said coyly as you appraised the necklace intently. “Half the bar was on the floor last I looked. I think you inspired a few of the other customers.” You tilted your head up curiously at him, detecting something foreign in his tone that inspired you in turn.</p><p>“I do like to leave an impression wherever I go,” you replied playfully as you quickly swept the necklace over your head, laying the crystal flat against the soft lilac of your scarf.</p><p>“You also tend to leave debris,” he returned, so abruptly that you simply blinked. You had heard the smile in his voice: faint, perhaps a little crooked, and before you could help yourself, you laughed – pure, unfiltered, like a song left on the shelf too long finally finding its second life.</p><p>“Still significantly less than what you left behind on Corellia,” you chided him, and you heard the faintest, indignant huff emerge from the bounty hunter. You were quiet for a moment as you mulled over what had happened there; in spite of your hostility towards him ever since you had first discovered him on your ship, you wondered how you would have fared without him, if you would have wound up in the same situation but with far dire consequences. You had danced around the truth of the matter ever since you had left Corellia, but you could not hide from the starkness of it now: he had saved your life, and it was a debt owed that you could possibly never repay.</p><p>“...I know I haven’t said it yet, but...thank you.”</p><p>A heavy silence descended between the two of you, viscous and almost too difficult to swallow. You knew your words had been soft, but now you wondered if they had been too softly spoken given the lack of recognition from the Mandalorian. In truth, you had no expectation of a reply; after all, it was you who owed him, but also because to you, he was a chrome, resolute pillar, unpliable and cold – you imagined both in feeling and to the touch – and there was little that you could say that could move that mountain.</p><p>“You didn’t have to.”</p><p>Perhaps it was the recognition of how quietly he had actually said those words that suddenly magnified in your mind how close in proximity he was to you. His helmet was tilted down, looking almost expectantly at you, and from this angle you became acutely aware of the height and spatial differential between you. When you had first laid eyes on him, his height had not attracted your attention when you first met him. You were used to physically looking down on everyone you met, given you were typically perched on a ladder; here and now, however, you fully recognized what kind of stature he had. Underneath the bulky squareness of his beskar vest, you could trace a leaner figure, but still muscular. In spite of the heavy appearance of his armor, he carried himself weightlessly, a quiet but unquestionable authority evident in his posture, with one gloved hand always hovering almost absentmindedly at the blaster slung at his hip. But those hands appeared gentle, too, ever purposeful in their movement, and as impassive as his expressions were rendered by his helmet, you somehow felt far more certain now of the features behind it. It was then that you finally realized that there was absolutely nothing about this man that could ever be mistaken for an unintentionality.</p><p>An inexplicable warmth radiated from your features, and you suddenly became extremely enamored of your boots.</p><p>“So...where do you plan on going next?” you asked quietly, still determinedly appraising the scuff markings littering your shoes.</p><p>He was silent for a moment. “I still have business to attend to,” he answered cagily, his tone equally gentle. “But I’m stranded until I can find a ship here.” You chewed at the inside of your mouth, turning the thought over in your mind repeatedly. You could feel his eyes on you and through you, unyielding and expectant. You were unsure of what he was searching for, but you could feel him searching nonetheless – it was invasive yet unsettlingly intimate, to be so easily intimidated by this specter of a man.</p><p>“That necklace...did it belong to your mother?”</p><p>It was voiced so hesitantly, so delicately as if he thought the words might cause you to break. You rolled the small, clear crystal between your fingertips, and nodded, drawing a shallow breath. “It’s all I’ve ever known of her,” you whispered back to him, almost quietly enough to be lost to the low howl of the night wind, as you felt a stray tear fall unbiddenly down your cheek. You wanted to avoid his piercing gaze, small as you felt, but something stronger, undoubtedly more prideful won out: you tilted your head up to face the Mandalorian, and at the electrifying throb of your heartbeat unexpectedly thundering in your chest, you knew your eyes had found his behind the T-visor of his helmet.</p><p>Before you could whisper another word, you heard the rumble of thrusters from above, and the hangar was suddenly bathed in a blue, iridescent light. You sharply turned around to see a light freighter making its descent upon the hangar, the ethereal azure glow emanating from the craft nearly blinding you, and you swiftly moved to the edge of the bay, noticing Peli emerging from her quarters to your right while the Mandalorian maneuvered alongside you. As the freighter slowly landed, the blazing blue of the thrusters flickered off almost as abruptly as it had arrived: the only remaining light left in the hangar then was the dull purple of twilight and the amber lantern that hung by the hangar exit, as the impending customer’s ship had masked the entire area in shadow. You wiped away from your cheek whatever remnants remained of your...emotional impropriety, before looking expectantly at Peli, and she grumbled and grumpily ducked past you, but not before sternly appraising you with – much to your chagrin – a particularly knowing look.</p><p>As you followed her towards the vessel, with the beskar-clad warrior trailing almost silently behind you, you noticed that Peli’s pit droids had been spooked into immobility by the ship’s unexpected arrival. You halted alongside the short-haired, short-tempered mechanic, as the freighter’s rear hatch deployed with a high-pitched, loud exhalation of steam. It slowly dissipated to reveal the ship’s pilot: he was a young-looking man, tall and handsome faced but looking distinctly haggard. He was more lean than broad, but his skin was swarthy and his arms taut and well-muscled. As fatigued as he might have been, and even in the darkness of his ship’s hatchway, from this distance you could still see his indistinct features curiously break out into a wide grin as soon as he laid his eyes upon you.</p><p>“For crying out loud, Rhys, will you ever learn to <em>not </em>scare my pit crew over there?” Peli squawked angrily, and at that moment, your heart dropped, the name resting on your tongue, soft and familiar.</p><p>“<em>Rhys</em>.”</p><p>You felt two other sets of eyes assess you rapidly as the man stepped forward off the gangplank, his forest-green eyes trailing over you avidly, and you finally let loose a breath you had not realized you had been holding as realization struck you like a hammer.</p><p>“Wait, you two <em>know</em> each other?” Peli stammered in disbelief. Rhys disregarded Peli completely as he approached you in just a few long, even strides, orbs still sparkling in unmistakable wonder, while you were simply dumbstruck. As you traced his features, you began to slowly recognize the man before you: there were whole new populations of freckles that had emerged on his cheeks, his face almost severely tanned, and sporting a shadow. There were wrinkles etched into the corners of his eyes, but they could never truly detract from the dark jade hues of his eyes. You noticed that his once-straight nose had a distinct bump at the bridge, and his hair was more closely cropped than you remembered. A wave of sadness washed over you as you began to reconcile the passage of time with the man before you – a man you had known since you were a child and had long regarded as an older sibling by proxy, whose visage now looked like a composite of his and a stranger’s features.</p><p>“Well, I’ll be...” he finally said, his tone gravelly – just like you remembered. “It’s good to see you, Zeya.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Y'allllll it has been a long last few weeks lol. I spent a lot of time rewriting this, and then I just had an avalanche of things hit me all at once, so it kept unfortunately getting delayed. I hope you guys like the final result, though!! I'm super excited for the direction this is headed from here because this is when things start to get really ~interesting~</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. The Countess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You sensed he was chillingly still out of the corner of your eye, statuesque and cold. Yet, you would have thought his gaze had set you ablaze by now the way he was burning you with his sudden, unsettlingly fierce curiosity: for as unnerving as his immobility was, you could feel him inspecting you, and you shriveled under the intense scrutiny. Your features had grown especially heated given Peli was also peering closely at you, her eyes switching between both you and Rhys to a point of almost unbearable discomfort before she finally reiterated her question.</p><p>“So…how exactly do you two know each other?”</p><p>Rhys was shaken from his reverie by the query, and his face split into another wide, swashbuckling grin at the sight of the short, prickly mechanic. “Peli!” he exclaimed, and much to your surprise, he swept her up into a crushing bear hug. She looked distinctly ruffled by the maneuver, but you detected a particularly self-satisfied smirk on her face shortly after he disengaged. “Zeya and I…well, we go a long way back.” He gave you a wink, and you offered a wide but severely repressed smile in return, almost noncommittal and not quite meeting your eyes. Then, his gaze turned to the beskar-armored warrior, and something almost undefinable crossed his features: thousands of uniquely tiny movements all conflicting and coming to blows with one another, before finally they restrained themselves and settled on a look of severely inhibited awe. It drew an extremely perplexed reaction from you at first, your brows quirking before you briefly recollected how many times in your past you had witnessed Rhys piece together split-second facades when he needed them most.</p><p>“Well, this is certainly an honor,” he said with a lopsided smile before stealing a glance at you. “I had no idea you kept such…fearsome company.” Rather reluctantly, you exchanged a look with the Mandalorian, who was still eerily quiet. Whereas moments before you had felt more confident in approximating the emotions underpinning his body language – perhaps even grown comfortable with his indifference to conversation – the bounty hunter was now rendered completely unreadable. For the most fleeting of seconds, you were stunned at the recognition of how sunken you felt by that realization, before you flung the thought to a far corner of your mind with practiced aim. Rhys then turned his attention back to the warrior and probed, “And what’s your name?”</p><p>The silence was deafening. Rhys simply chuckled.</p><p>“Not the talkative type, I see,” he observed cheerfully. “I won’t take offense. From my experience, not many of your kind are. You are of an exceptionally rare breed.”</p><p>This seemed to finally pique the Mandalorian’s interest. “You’ve…met others of my kind?” It was a pointed question, underlined with the same curiosity that had lit you afire earlier; admittedly, the notion of Rhys rubbing elbows with other Mandalorians intrigued you as well. You had only encountered your companion by sheer luck – that you could actually call your entanglement with him fortunate still remained to be seen – but the race as a whole had otherwise been utter myth to you. The legacy of Mandalorian culture and their lethal abilities could cast a shadow so enormous that it loomed over entire planets, and your home world was no exception.</p><p>Rhys shrugged. “I’ve not had the frequent pleasure, if you could call it that,” he replied swiftly, before spreading his palms outward in a form of apology. “I don’t mean to offend. It just comes with the territory, I suppose.” You raised a brow curiously at him.</p><p>“What territory, exactly?” you asked. He noticeably stiffened.</p><p>“Corporate Sector,” he answered in a lower tone. “It’s…not pretty work. Most of my time is spent evading smugglers. I’m a contracted pilot.” You regarded him with a doleful smile.</p><p>“Well, you’d always said you’d wanted to fly away,” you noted, your tone bordering on melancholy but deliberately barbed. His jade eyes swept over you, and the sudden guilt that washed over his features was unmistakable. Your returning gaze was forlorn, but you crossed your arms as a show of emotional resilience, though the actual success of this gesture was arguably questionable. A tense silence followed, with only the sound of the desert wind bristling the sand at your feet breaking the evening’s stillness, while your eyes kept trailing over Rhys expectantly, searching for explanation.</p><p>Somehow, the very idea of a reality existing wherein Rhys had returned to your life felt less euphoric and more like a surreal dream, and he was an intangible, grinning specter, reappearing only to forcefully remind you of a lifetime from which you were far removed. His nonchalance almost grated on you, the swagger in every movement, how broadly his mouth stretched, like everything was banter – you, by contrast, were inflexibly stoic, your expression almost pained looking upon a man whose joviality may well have been a better mask than the one your armored compatriot wore constantly. You wanted to crack his veneer and watch that flawless smile of his shatter in hundreds of thousands of perfect, shiny little pieces.</p><p>“Eight years.”</p><p>Had you been able to count, you wagered it would have been just shy of a million.</p><p>For the second time in a matter of minutes, the muted atmosphere possessed all the gravity of a planet. Rhys looked as crumpled as a discarded piece of paper. Peli eyed you quizzically, while the Mandalorian tilted his helmet sharply in your direction. That, more than anything, told you that the hit had landed with peerless success. “That’s how long it’s been, hasn’t it? Eight years?” With that exposition, you had indisputably achieved a new level of viscous, unpleasant awkwardness, but the assertion gave you power you felt had vacated you ever since your rapid exit from the cantina. Peli shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, and the bounty hunter remained profoundly rigid before shifting his intent, unyielding focus to Rhys, who blanched upon appraisal. You took mildly sadistic pleasure in witnessing how intimidated he was by the Mandalorian, the way even the slightest adjustment in stance on his part could set an entire room on edge: when you were not the recipient of his ire, you had to admit that it was a truly marvelous sight to behold.</p><p>“I’ll just, uh...be going,” Peli said uneasily, gesturing to her quarters with her thumb before quickly striding off to her office, leaving you, Rhys, and the Mandalorian in the hangar, the night now almost deathly quiet. Suddenly, the bounty hunter’s helmet turned to you.</p><p>“I’ll be taking some of the rations from your ship with me,” he said, and your face contorted in bewilderment.</p><p>“With you?” you inquired, confused, and your posture tightened considerably. “Where are you going?”</p><p>It was his turn to stiffen – he none too subtly cocked his head at Rhys before replying. “Mos Espa,” he answered evasively, and your brow furrowed. Given your lack of familiarity with Tatooine as a whole, you had no reference for where Mos Espa was relative to Mos Eisley. Apparently taking note of the puzzlement lacing your features, he clarified helpfully, “I’ll be gone for a few days.” He then abruptly turned around and proceeded towards the hangar exit, and you gaped, frustration rising.</p><p>“You’re leaving <em>now?</em>” you asked after him incredulously. “Wouldn’t it be wiser to wait until morning?” On one hand, there was a genuine concern for what dangers lurked on Tatooine after nightfall – by your approximation, the inside of the city was not terribly safe, but had to be at least marginally better than outside its walls; on the other, you also were not enthusiastic at the prospect of being left alone to discuss what had been with Rhys, and the Mandalorian abandoning you felt almost like a betrayal. Worse, knowing that he was more than capable of handling himself left no true room for argument for the former point. The warrior pivoted to face you, and though the reflective chrome of his beskar helmet masterfully hid his features, his body language suggested that he regarded the statement as a mild insult.</p><p>“I’ll be fine.” The answer was as typically brusque as ever, yet you thought you caught a note of something akin to gentle reassurance in his tone before convincing yourself it had been your imagination. In another beat he was gone, his charcoal cloak fluttering in his wake, and something inside you felt distinctly emptier, but you resolutely ignored the sensation in favor of leveling a very blank expression at Rhys. He peered at you warily before raising his hands diplomatically and crookedly smiling.</p><p>“Talk?” he proposed. You sighed and uncrossed your arms.</p><p>“Where the hell did you go, Rhys?” The way he straightened his posture was evidence enough that the question was triggering; then again, you had no interest in dancing around the topic when it was inarguably a conversation eight years overdue.</p><p>“Ah, so we’re just leaping straight into the muckrat’s den, got it,” he quipped, and it earned him a particularly piercing glare from you.</p><p>“I don’t care for small talk.”</p><p>“Did you learn that from him?” Derision saturated his voice while he jabbed a thumb towards the hangar exit, and you regarded him with a look so cold it may as well have frozen him where he stood.</p><p>“I’ve changed.”</p><p>“That certainly hasn’t escaped my notice.”</p><p>“You’d have known I had if you had ever bothered to come back to Raydonia like you said you would.”</p><p>His expression darkened considerably as something almost wrathful overtook his gaze, but you hardened, your body language offering no apology for the remark. “I never betrayed you, Zeya,” he replied coolly, every syllable possessing a sharp, calculated edge. “I was the one that asked you to come with me when I left, and you were the one that refused, remember?”</p><p>You clenched your teeth as your blood simmered: loath as you were to admit it, his recollection of events was correct. Then, quick as a switch, Rhys sighed loudly, his shoulders slumping as a new muddle of emotions appeared on his face, cloudy and indiscernible from one another. “I don’t wanna fight, Z,” he said, almost miserably. “I know I should have come back, but...things got in the way.”</p><p>“Like what?”</p><p>There was an obvious hesitation on his part as he rolled his shoulders back and crossed his arms, avoiding your eyes. You tried again, more acidly, “<em>Like what</em>, Rhys?”</p><p>He was quiet, but when he looked up at you, you were severely taken aback by the sudden fury that had set his eyes alight. “The Rebellion.” There was something distinctly pained and meaty about the way he almost growled the word out, like it was something to be scourged from all vocabulary. You received it with equal enthusiasm: for all the parades and celebrations of heroism that the New Republic rolled out shortly after the supposed demise of the Galactic Empire, based on your observations, nothing had really changed. At least, not for the people who needed things to the most.</p><p>“The Rebellion?” you scoffed. “That’s the circus you ran away to join?” His jaw visibly tightened. You laughed hollowly as you continued, “Well, isn’t that just a brilliant excuse. Went off to be a hero and save us all from the Empire, huh, is that it, Rhys?”</p><p>“It wasn’t like that,” he gritted out, his tone bordering on dangerous, but you refused to hold back.</p><p>“Did you get the glory you always wanted?” you spat out, years of repressed resentment pouring out of you as heat flooded your face. “Win the war, get the girl? Home never really did mean anything to you – ”</p><p>“<em>Will you shut up for one goddamned second?</em>”</p><p>His expression had darkened so flagrantly with the exclamation such that if your adrenaline had not carried you this far, you would have wisely cowered in the face of the tangible danger that radiated from his every pore. You felt your face turn a severe shade of scarlet as anger flowed undammed through your veins. “You were the one that said ‘talk,’” you retorted sharply, your voice turning deadly quiet. Rhys appeared distinctly unamused, then shook his head defeatedly, almost as if he finally seemed to recall that your stubbornness routinely won out in an argument.</p><p>“I left the Alliance once the tides turned,” he said lowly.</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Didn’t want to define myself by a cause any longer,” he replied gruffly. Somewhere buried deep in your memory banks, you unearthed a reminiscence of those words: you shifted uneasily upon recognition that he was echoing your own refusal to leave Raydonia with him from eight years ago. He then continued cynically, “And I realized that the only honest people in war are those selling it – those buying into it are just kidding themselves.”</p><p>On some level, that rang true to you. You had heard enough rabble-rousers preach about the injustice in the galaxy, asking for pledges and a devoted commitment to sacrificing life and limb for the Rebellion, yet their observation of the level of subjugation occurring was staggeringly limited, bordering on ignorance. Their mantra was always the same: never forget Alderaan, but as significant as its loss was, you wondered why it was the deaths of billions that triggered the unification of radical freedom fighters, splintered as they had previously been, to turn against an Empire that had already spent almost two decades abusing the galaxy at large. Admittedly, as apathetic as you were to the entire conflict, you possessed some degree of passion with regard to the pain and oppression the Empire had inflicted upon entire planetary systems all over the galaxy. Yet, you were distrustful of the promises made by the Alliance in the wake of the Empire’s defeat and struggled to believe in the New Republic’s proclamations that there were no active regiments remaining, especially when you took frequent notice of the errant patrols of stormtroopers and former Imperial governors reigning over colonies in the Outer Rim.</p><p>“Why didn’t you come with me?”</p><p>The question had shattered your meditative state like a sledgehammer sweeping effortlessly through a glass window, ushering in a wave of distressing thoughts and old memories – but it was voiced with such a pleading, earnest tone, remarkably different from the harsh gravel he had employed earlier, such that the familiarity of it evoked a painfully tight throbbing in your chest.</p><p>“It didn’t matter to me that joining the Rebellion was never in the cards for you. You were the closest thing I had to family, Z. I wanted us to finally do what we’d always talked about, always <em>dreamed of</em> as kids.” Your eyes were downcast, your body having wilted without you realizing it. Suddenly, Rhys kneeled slightly before you to meet your eyes and captured your hands in his gently; against your better judgment, you softened at the gesture. “You’d always said you felt like something was pulling you, remember? Like you were meant for something bigger? Why didn’t you chase that when the opportunity was handed to you? To the both of us?”</p><p>You huffed a scornful little chuckle. “Isn’t that what we all told ourselves on that skug hole?” you rejoined evasively, your voice pained. Rhys shook his head as you averted your eyes.</p><p>“The rest of us wanted glory. You wanted something different.”</p><p>You sighed. “It was just a dream, Rhys,” you said tiredly. “Something I told myself to give the life I had on Raydonia some greater meaning beyond farming and fixing things. Sometimes a lie is the only shield we have.”</p><p>He looked at you curiously for a moment, then released your hands and rose, the tension having seemingly eased out of his frame; you realized that you yourself also felt more relaxed, albeit to a questionable extent.</p><p>“When did you finally leave?” he asked timidly, his brow furrowing.</p><p>“About a year after you did,” you answered blearily. “Father had remarried. It seemed like the right time. I stowed away on the monthly transporter, ended up somewhere in the Mid Rim, and I’ve been planet hopping ever since.”</p><p>“Have you ever been back?”</p><p>You paused for a beat, before briskly answering with a distinct ache in your chest: “No.”</p><p>The significance of the statement was not lost on him, and he stayed conspicuously silent for a minute before swiftly moving onto the next subject.</p><p>“So, what’s the story with the Mando?” he inquired, flashing you a suspicious look.</p><p>“If only I could tell you,” you replied with a slight roll of your eyes. “Made himself at home on my ship when I wasn’t looking, and I’ve been stuck with him ever since.” A skeptical expression greeted your explanation.</p><p>“Wait, so he was...”</p><p>“...My stowaway, yes.”</p><p>You gave him a look of equal disbelief before continuing. “Can’t say I was terribly enthusiastic about it at first, but...he does have his moments.” Your gaze had been concentrated on Rhys when it faltered as your mind found the shape of the Mandalorian; before you could shake yourself from the thought, Rhys had presumably already detected your thought pattern, much to your chagrin, and his features turned surprisingly serious.</p><p>“Careful tangling with a Mandalorian, Zeya,” Rhys warned quietly, his emerald eyes flickering concernedly over you. “They’re ruthless creatures. They won’t bat an eye at doing what needs to be done.” You flashed briefly back to Corellia, recalling how the Mandalorian had handled the multiple thugs from Crimson Dawn and how calculative, almost brutally efficient he was at leveling several assailants at once. You wondered what it would look like to be on the receiving end of that kind of mechanical menace, and the involuntary shudder that accompanied that thought led you to resolve never to put yourself in that position.</p><p>“I’ll try, but no promises,” you offered with a rueful smile, but his countenance remained distinctly grave. You placed a hand over his. “Hey.” Something about the way he held his shoulders signified that the word, simple as it was, had struck something deep inside him – almost as though they were suddenly far heavier than they already appeared, your safety a new burden for him to carry.</p><p>“I just don’t want you winding up dead because you get caught in a crossfire, Zeya,” he pressed on, his tone weighty, but your heart hardened, and your expression turned to stone.</p><p>“I’ve managed on my own for eight years, Rhys,” you said coldly. “I can handle myself.” Somewhere in the depths of the emerald pools of his eyes swam an apology, and you sighed, a steady flow of guilt seeping into your frame. “I know you care, Rhys, but I’ve been at this awhile. I‘ll be alright.” A more comfortable silence settled between the two of you, until you broke it again, somewhat eager for a change of topic.</p><p>“So, what’s wrong with this scrapheap you brought in?” you asked, gesturing with a loose throw of your hand towards the freighter.</p><p>Rhys huffed. “It’s not a scrapheap,” he replied indignantly. You gave him a knowing look, and he reluctantly waved his hands palms outward in a motion of concession, a movement that reminded you strongly of Peli. “Alright, it’s not my <em>favorite </em>thing I’ve ever flown.”</p><p>You walked towards it, surveying it with a critical eye. It was a squat, wide vessel, shaped pentagonally and painted a drab olive green. It was not a particularly impressive ship. You crossed your arms, looking upon it narrowly, before turning to Rhys. “VCX class, isn’t it? Corellian?”</p><p>He positively beamed at you. “Very good,” Rhys said with a grin, before appearing more contemplative. “Is this what you’ve been doing this whole time then?” You had begun circling the craft as he spoke, curiously examining the bubbled cockpit above you and gripping whatever parts of the transporter were within your reach as you crouched underneath it and started to assess the underside.</p><p>“Something like this, yeah,” you answered absently as you took note of an entire panel missing from the belly of the ship before discovering the absence of a key component. “Your shield generator is missing. Did you know that?”</p><p>“I’m aware of that, yes,” he said impatiently. “Z, how long have you been here?”</p><p>You pried at a loose wire, and you clumsily dodged three components that tumbled down like rain upon you. “Came in this morning,” you replied evasively, then continued, “By the way, this really is a piece of junk.” You felt his eyes on you as you scooped up the pieces and slipped out from underneath the freighter, tossing them a few feet away from you towards Peli’s mechanic droids, who awoke almost dazedly from their hibernation at first and then scrambled away frantically from the components you had showered upon them. You rested your hands on your hips, then said, “Looks like your deflector shield generator was swiped, so I’ll need to scavenge for the part. Might take a few days, I don’t know how scarce something like that is around here. Work itself won’t take me more than thirty minutes.”</p><p>“Zeya?”</p><p>“Rhys?” You looked up at him, expectant, and he just peered back sadly. His mouth hung agape for a flicker, then he seemed to swallow whatever words he had intended to say.</p><p>“How much for the repairs?” he simply asked. You eyed him with an acute interest but surrendered the thought, allowing the moment to slip away from you.</p><p>“About five hundred credits,” you answered, and his eyebrows rose considerably. “But...I’ll afford you a sizable discount.” That piratelike grin of his reemerged, and you rolled your eyes, damning the twitch and pull that made its home at the corner of your mouth.</p><p>“After all these years, you’re still the best, Z,” Rhys said affectionately, and you shrugged. As hard as you fought it – and likely against your better judgment – the warmth of his expression thawed you.</p><p>Barely, but thawed you all the same.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Tatooine really was a barren hellscape.</p><p>You hated it for the waves of sand that occasionally crashed down upon the hangar and buried every single one of your tools. You despised the torturous afternoon suns that set your skin ablaze, and you especially loathed the miserable, crooked clientele it attracted. Later during the evening that Rhys had arrived, you relocated his ship to an adjacent hangar, since without the requisite parts to repair it, it was only going to halt business and you were not keen on provoking Peli. Rhys adjourned to his ship to sleep, but you were too restless to succumb to exhaustion; instead, you spent the entire night rummaging through Peli’s equipment, gathering discarded tools from around the hangar and deliberating on how best to categorize and organize each one. It was an arduous task given the breadth of her collection, and particularly mind-numbing, but that was what you wanted – hell, what you <em>needed</em>. You wanted to render your mind completely blank. Rhys’s sudden return to your life was an unwelcome distraction, a reminder of the soft, distant pulsing in some deep, uncharted corner of your mind that sometimes woke you in the middle of the night, calling out for your attention.</p><p>It was just a dream. That was all it had ever been, a lie that had sustained your existence on Raydonia, but somehow it had developed a life of its own since you left; now, the notion of some greater purpose haunted you. It was the kind of dangerous thinking that had fueled both the Rebellion and the Empire, emboldening individuals to reach for a higher ideal while leaving a tempest-tossed ruin of a galaxy in their wake. You had grown up on a planet where life’s meaning equated to serving a community, leaving the individual behind, a philosophy that had led your own mother to abandon her child mere moments after bringing her into the world. You eventually had reasoned that there was surely no significance to be found in a universe that exorbitantly rewarded the oppressors and burdened the downtrodden with the weight of the entire galaxy’s fate.</p><p>By the time the twin suns had risen while the sky had erupted into blistering orange and baby blue hues, the notion of sleep had been taunting you with every move you made. Your arms had felt heavy and slack at your sides, and every time you stretched your body, the sudden weight of it nearly collapsed you. Yet, the motion sickness that accompanied you and the distinct feeling that your head would cave in soon if you did not reward its discipline with an energizing supplement or several hours of rest had successfully pushed all other thoughts out of your mind, and at that time, that was enough.</p><p>It did not take long for your contentment to fade.</p><p>Within the hour, Peli had put you back to work, barking out an order to prepare for an incoming transport vessel through a very poorly stifled yawn, but not before raising a very curious eyebrow at the hangar’s newly minted cleanliness and organization. Surprisingly, she had let the moment pass without comment, a rare courtesy that in the short time you had known Peli you had gathered she did not often extend. You had three clients come through in the first four hours of the morning, each increasingly more suspicious than the last, by which stage you recognized that to simply drop dead and let the twin suns roast you such that you could be an afternoon snack for a dewback was far preferable to the cramping ache in your hands and the soreness in your lower back. As your last client – a Trandoshan with a notably extensive collection of knives hilted at his belt – made his leave of the hangar, you were greeted with the unpleasant sight of a gratingly cheerful Raydonian making his entrance.</p><p>“Morning, sunshine,” Rhys declared with a grin, and you merely grunted in reply as you determinedly avoided eye contact, busying yourself with restoring some of your tools to their prescribed shelves at a corner of the hangar and digging beneath a newly born sand dune to salvage the rest of them. You swore quietly to yourself as grains of sand lodged themselves in a raw, fresh blister that had recently developed in the crevice between your thumb and forefinger on your right hand, silently praying for the spontaneous formation of a black hole to swallow the whole damned planet whole as the wound stung potently. You could feel Rhys’s narrowed gaze trained on the back of your head and heard the thud of a heavy bag dropping on the ground before he finally piped up, “Alright, who crapped in your caf?”</p><p>You tossed your head in his direction and cut him a sour look, and his expression quickly turned from annoyance to an immediate sadness mixed with something that looked uncannily like regret – an uncommon emotion from Rhys, based on past experience.</p><p>“You didn’t sleep last night.” It was a mere statement of fact, not phrased as a question, and your lack of response proved an unfortunate confirmation. You looked at him as you thoroughly toweled a wrench: his lean, darkly tanned body appeared sunken by the revelation, his emerald eyes downcast, but you just shrugged.</p><p>“You used to do that whenever something was bothering you,” he continued softly as he approached. “You’d spend hours fixing any old junk you could find if it meant you didn’t have to think or talk to anyone.” You hardened as you felt his presence cross the boundary of the imaginary bubble you had strived to maintain since the night before. His proximity was alarming to the version of you that had long since abandoned Raydonia, but it was comforting in its familiarity to some small part of you that still lingered there – the conflict and disparity between both identities, moreover the very idea that two versions of yourself coexisted in the same body felt so wildly dissonant and discomforting to you that you wondered how much of a lunatic you would seem if you just ran away from him. Somewhere in the back of your mind, the quiet thrumming regained its momentum as it began its movement to the forefront of your consciousness, progress you frantically tried to halt when he placed a cautious hand on your shoulder.</p><p>“What’s wrong?”</p><p>It was a whisper of a question and brimming with concern you had long since come to expect from Rhys: for all his faults, he had always cared about you earnestly, and in those moments of expression, that mask of roguish charm and inimitable confidence fell. Just as delicately, so did yours.</p><p>“You’re here, Rhys,” you answered simply. “You’re here and I don’t know what to do with that.”</p><p>Without another word and before you could protest – a maneuver you were positive he had anticipated and appropriately prepared for – he pulled you into his body, large and eclipsing, with one hand gently cradling the back of your head and the other resting at the small of your back. Perplexingly, you allowed it, surrendering to his tidal wave of warmth and comfort, suffocating as it was, but your body was stiff and as inflexible as a column of steel. He merely chuckled softly at your palpable resistance.</p><p>“I don’t know how it’s possible, but I think you’re even more stubborn than I remember,” he mused, and you snorted.</p><p>“Hard to make a case for yourself when you forced yourself on me,” you replied sarcastically, but much to your displeasure, you knew there was no real strength behind your argument.</p><p>“Well, that’s just…hurtful,” he levied weakly.</p><p>“You’ve had worse said to you. You’ll survive.” You then hesitantly threaded your arms underneath his, your hands finding the bulk of his shoulders, and the tension in your own dissipated. You let your eyes fall shut, and for a solitary moment, you allowed yourself to feel thankful for something that felt familial.</p><p>“I didn’t want our reunion to be like this,” he said, voice low and rich with emotion as you felt the vibration and the stutter of his accompanying sigh ripple through his chest against your own. “I never meant to leave you behind. I never did, really, not in my mind.” He pulled back from you and cupped your face with one large, callused hand and swept his thumb across your cheek, a small smile tugging at the corner of his lips. The gesture was one of immense fondness, and you felt untethered by it, swept up in his wave without a life preserver and remarkably unsure of how to stay above water.</p><p>You knew you were still angry at Rhys. He had been your brother, your partner in crime, but he also had made his getaway without you; yet, here he was, overwhelming you with a level of care that you had not experienced in years. You wanted to stopper the years of resentment before it could drain out of you, hold onto some glimmer of rage and fury and unleash pure hellfire upon him.</p><p>But the truth was, you were just too damned tired.</p><p>“We both wanted a lot of things once upon a time, Rhys,” you replied quietly, reaching for the hand at your cheek and dropping it down to dangle by your waist, but you still held on to the tips of his fingers. “You can’t take back the years you were gone. I know you wish you could, and...that’ll have to be enough for now.” Relief and joy surfaced in his eyes, and you returned a small smile, though some trepidation lurked in the shadowy corners of your mind. There was plenty to hold against Rhys, but you lacked the energy or will to sort through the years’ worth of shared trauma, loneliness, and frustration between you at that moment. On one hand, your apathy had been substantially exacerbated by the feeling that your arms were liable to fall off your body if you did not allow them rest soon, but also because the silence that followed between you two had almost set you aglow with its intoxicating familiarity. It felt far less like venturing through treacherous waters and more like floating in the shallow end of a pool, soaking in the warmth of a golden sun.</p><p>The comfort of that particular feeling passed as soon as Rhys then supplied a rather unnecessary observation: “You need a shower, kid.”</p><p>You appraised yourself: you were coated in grease and sand, hands darkened and clothes filthened thanks to the busywork you had assigned yourself the previous night, along with having buried yourself waist-deep in the turbine of a client’s U-wing. You conceded with a weak gesture of your hands. “Can’t say you’re wrong,” you replied, exhaustion now evident in your voice. He shook his head at you with a slight grin.</p><p>“The VCX has a fresher,” he informed you kindly. “Make use of it while I’m gone.”</p><p>“Gone? Where to?”</p><p>“Mos Taike. Some locals told me there are plenty of Jawa junk dealers out that way that might have a shield generator I could barter for. Thought I’d save you the trouble of scavenging. It’ll be a couple days before I’m back.”</p><p>“Good, I’ll have you out of my hair for a little while then,” you replied, and he snorted. Admittedly, however, you were envious of the fact that he had the freedom to leave Mos Eisley, while you were trapped in the godforsaken, iniquitous hellhole by your commitment to Peli. Rhys retrieved the bag he had dropped earlier and slung it over his shoulder heftily.</p><p>“Wasn’t kidding about the fresher, you smell like bantha-crap, Z,” he reiterated sternly, but you crossed your arms defiantly, a smirk emerging almost immediately.</p><p>“Thanks, it’s from digging around that waste-heap you call a ship.”</p><p>Rhys shook his head again, another grin spreading widely. “You really have changed alright, just not in the ways you should have,” he quipped, eyes creasing as he laughed easily, and you playfully smacked him on the arm, until his expression turned serious. “I’ll be back in a couple days. I promise.”</p><p>You sighed lamentably. “I appreciate the sentiment, but I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson yet.”</p><p>His brow furrowed. “What’s that?”</p><p>“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Five days passed without event.</p><p>Five days without a sighting of the Mandalorian.</p><p>Five days without Rhys.</p><p>Five long, arduous, painfully back-breaking days that made you want to pitch your entire tool set at every customer that landed in Peli’s hangar.</p><p>If they were not foul and rude, they possessed a lethal glint in their eyes. If they were not silently threatening murder in response to you refusing to service their ship, they were merely cheap, complaining and moaning about your prices being too high. If you were lucky enough to avoid conversation with them entirely, then every light scraping of your clothes against the second-degree burns you were positive you had sustained from the twin suns made you want to rip the skin and sorely tender, overworked flesh from your bones and operate as a mere skeleton. On top of the unpleasantness of functioning altogether, you also had severely limited your interactions with Peli purely to avoid prying questions, who you had learned was insufferably nosy: if her interrogation was not with regard to the Mandalorian, then it concerned Rhys, and if not Rhys, then you.</p><p>“Did you and Rhys grow up together?</p><p>“Were you two ever an item?”</p><p>“How was working on Malastare?”</p><p>“Did Mando keep any pictures of that baby of his?”</p><p>“Ever seen Mando without his helmet on?”</p><p>“Know if Rhys likes short, curly-haired mechanics?”</p><p>By the fourth line of questioning that you had endured in the course of an hour, you had quickly learned to busy yourself in the tightest crevices you could find on each ship that arrived, even if it was impractical for your work, as you could feign an inability to hear what she had to say. You had grown increasingly frustrated with Peli’s interest in your life, so soon as you were able to disentangle yourself from a vessel, you would swiftly make your leave of the vicinity, either deferring to Rhys’s ship or your own until you would spot another client preparing to dock in Peli’s hangar and return to work again. That had been your rhythm for five days: work tirelessly, then hurriedly vacate the premises to avoid any further probing.</p><p>Yet, one of Peli’s questions had plagued you ever since she had asked it: “<em>Ever seen Mando without his helmet on?</em>”</p><p>If you were being honest with yourself, you had not put much thought into the fact you had not by this point. You had met an ensemble of odd, leery, and downright crazy characters since leaving your home planet that his facade was less confounding to you and more just a fact of living in a galaxy where any knowledge pertaining to your identity could likely get you killed. Given his line of work, you could understand the advantage of his stringently private nature – if ever the need arose to completely disappear, he could do so masterfully, simply fading out of existence in order to live a peaceful life, save for bearing the weight of his sins. Moreover, you had not known him for a particularly long interval of time, and he owed you nothing: if he never chose to share his face with you, what did that matter to you in the long run?</p><p>Now that she brought that fact to your attention, however, you found yourself idly wondering about him. The extent to which the Mandalorian and his curious way occupied your mind when you least expected it nettled you, especially in the wake of his sudden absence. There was no armored specter at which to lob a snide comment in order to process the thought of him, no frustratingly blank, chrome expression to bring out your sarcastic, vitriolic side and help reconcile how much his looming presence vexed you, so you were left with nothing but his mere shape ghosting in and out of your conscious as you worked. It became a meditative pastime to absently construct a mental picture of how he looked, sometimes asking yourself questions you assumed would never be answered: how many wrinkles cornered his eyes? Did he smile crookedly, if at all? Was his hair long or short, dark or blonde? What color were his eyes, and what shape were they? Was he just hideously scarred, or did he have large, protruding ears he felt the need to hide? The questions floated like clouds through your mind as you rewired circuits or furiously hammered out metal, until before long you had conceived of an image, sans scar or large ears, though you admittedly never entirely ruled out those possibilities.</p><p>You imagined his hair was short and brown – he would never tolerate the nonsense of shaggy, long tresses – and given he infrequently took his helmet off, you figured he had facial hair. His manner was gruff, and any grace he possessed was purely reserved for combat, so you thought his features would be more rugged, not composed of clean or smooth lines but more pronounced. Rough around the edges was the only way you could think to describe them. The rest was an utter mystery, one you figured he would never let you solve whether you were inclined to do so or not.</p><p>That, in particular, was the part on which you were undecided.</p><p>When evening finally arrived some sixteen hours later, your limbs burned with soreness and your body was desperate for rest that you had stubbornly denied it, save for occasional thirty-minute sojourns into slumber. As much as you detested finding yourself in the company of Peli, there was no peace to be found in the alternative, either. Rhys had promised two days, while the Mandalorian gave no deadline for his return, but the five and quickly progressing to six total days that they had been gone was an absence you felt deeply. The duration of time they had been gone had also grossly intensified your paranoia: if your hand was not repeatedly twisting at the leather cord at your neck, then your fingers were itching towards the KYD-21 you were now furtively storing in the pocket of your vest. Rhys’s enemies, if he had any, were likely not yours, but thanks to events on both Ganthel and Corellia, regrettably there was now an undeniable overlap between the adversaries the Mandalorian most definitely had and ones you had only acquired thanks to his interference in your life.</p><p>The sky was a midnight blue, studded with stars and Tatooine’s three moons glowed with a soft effervescence over the hangar. You had not ventured far into Mos Eisley since the brawl you had unwittingly incited at the cantina, your primary food source having been the small mountain of rations that the Mandalorian had graciously acquired for you both on Corellia. Wary as you were of exploring the spaceport after nightfall, the frequency of this meal however, had finally meant you could no longer stomach it. After refreshing yourself on Rhys’s ship and changing into a set of moderately clean clothes – the obscene amount of time you had dedicated to working meant you had not reserved much of it to laundering your attire as often as you probably should – you hooded your features with your dark, lilac scarf and slipped onto the main street, the cool evening breeze caressing your features while a small gust of sand swept past your ankles.</p><p>The street was relatively empty, aside from the raucous noise of the hopelessly off-key band emerging from the cantina at the street’s terminus, and a group of robed teenagers loitering adjacent to one of the domed, limestone structures on the left-hand side. You kept to the streetlights, wrinkling your nose at the rank odor drifting on the air and guarding the blaster pistol in your vest with your right hand as you strode at a nervous pace towards the restaurant. As soon as you entered, you were met with an appreciable wall of sound, the atmosphere tangibly buzzing with drunken energy, and before you could lock eyes with any patron, you sidled along the far-right wall towards the booth tucked inconspicuously in a corner – the same one you realized you and the Mandalorian had occupied less than a week before. You seated yourself facing the doorway, resolutely avoiding direct eye contact with any of the customers but always keeping the cantina’s entrance in your immediate periphery.</p><p>After a few minutes, a distinctly battered C5 droid swept over to your table. “May I take your order, miss?” it questioned in an excitable mechanical voice.</p><p>“Something with bones,” you answered quietly, and it nodded enthusiastically.</p><p>“Right away, miss!” it exclaimed, and bolted away from your table while you had the thought that such exuberance could truly only be programmed, especially on a miserably desolate wasteland like Tatooine. You scanned the cantina again, gaze frequently darting between the musicians – a cadre of blue-skinned creatures whose species you did not know but were severely lacking in talent all the same – and the roaring ocean of loud, unsteady customers. Before long, the droid came back with a plate of food: dewback meat with a side of what appeared to be overcooked root vegetables. You prodded the meat cautiously with a utensil the droid had supplied you, your reservations only magnified by the tough texture. You reluctantly began digging in as you reminded yourself that it was either leathery, moderately flavorful dewback meat or another bland ration pack.</p><p>About halfway through your meal was when the feeling slammed into you like a freight train.</p><p>Your eyes swept the room, searching for the source of your sudden anxiety when they landed on two men who had just arrived, garbed in dark clothes.</p><p>And crimson scarves.</p><p>Rather than frantically depart, you resolved to pull your makeshift hood further over your features and started swiftly calculating your odds: presuming you were their target, which you considered to be a fairly safe bet, they had seemingly not spotted you yet. Though they were still thoroughly browsing the premises, they had not scanned your far corner of the tavern. Based on past experience, they were opposed to engaging in combat in a public setting, so you reasoned that the crowd was your best cover. You continued eating casually while you guardedly watched the two thugs, the anxious, rapid beat of your heart battering your ribcage, for whatever path they charted through the cantina would ultimately dictate your exit. While you peered at the crowd and searched for gaps in the maze of customers that would allow you a swift departure, they proceeded to stop directly in front of the band in order to appraise the landscape – much to the anger of the bar patrons, some who began chaotically chucking their drinks, and others who were ready to scrap with such vigor that you thought they had been looking for any excuse to fight. You took that as your cue, and at an accelerated stride, you skillfully sidestepped several drunken humanoids, and you were just three meters from the doorway –</p><p>Right before you were ripped violently back like a doll on a string by someone with an ironclad grasp. The aggressive pull of your scarf backwards nearly choked you, and on pure instinct, you jammed your left elbow backwards at the culprit, but regrettably found nothing but air, a result that translated into the momentum that you had carried into your attempted blow completely unsteadying you. Your accoster laughed darkly and took advantage, his other hand digging his fingers sharply into your left bicep, and you gasped at the sensation. You were forcefully spun around, your braided hair now tangled up in your attacker’s massive grip, and as you came face to face with him, you groaned, infuriated.</p><p>“Remember me, pretty girl?” His leering grin was composed of gaping holes and dingy, yellowish teeth, his large nose now purplish and crooked – an injury you had awarded him during your last encounter – and you recoiled in disgust at the proximity of his mouth, his breath putrid and spiced with the stench of stale liquor. As impeded as the Crimson Dawn acolytes might have been by the wildly inebriated and uproarious crowd, you were now incapacitated by the man you had crippled less than a week ago, and he seemed extremely intent on maintaining a grudge against you for it.</p><p>“How could I forget?” you grumbled sarcastically, supplementing the retort with a replicate of a cheerful, not-quite-at-your eyes grin that you had seen Rhys employ whenever he was in trouble. It had not occurred to you how many of that man’s antics had influenced your own reckless behavior, but it exasperated you to recognize that in that exact moment. For the sake of your sanity, you resolved never to tell him. Your aggressor, meanwhile, seemed eminently displeased with your comment, but you took advantage of his shock at your brazenness to jump and aim a swift upward kick of your right leg at his side. The resulting cry and his release of your braid so that he could tend to his rib cage gave you the opening you needed, and as you dashed out of the cantina at lightning speed, you purposefully shoved over a table to force a barrier to the entrance without taking a second look behind you.</p><p>You imagined the entire altercation had likely caught the attention of your pursuers, but if the Mandalorian had been speaking the truth and you had in fact caused a substantial ruckus the last time, you hoped you had managed a satisfactory recreation of that evening on your way out the door. Instead of adhering to the streetlamps as you had on your way to the bar, this time you embraced the shadows, blending with the sandstone buildings in the dark to the best of your ability, until before long you crossed over the lane to the hangar where Rhys’s ship was docked. The landing bay was ebony and opaque to your vision, but you hoped you could turn it to your advantage as you stationed yourself directly beneath the Corellian vessel. You had enough freedom of movement underneath the belly of the ship such that you could make a quick escape if necessary, but your chief advantage was the element of surprise.</p><p>As you tried to regulate your breathing, you heard the scuffling of footsteps and low, indiscernible mutterings. Amber light suddenly bathed the hangar, and you spotted two pairs of legs begin to circle the hangar in opposite directions, while you reached down for the vibroblade stowed in your boot. You tried as silently as you could to migrate to the back left corner of the freighter, converging on the position of the thug closest to you, and sensing his move to bend down and peer under the ship, you made the split-second decision to lunge forward with as much of your body weight as you could muster and topple him, blade finding flesh in the clash, but you lacked the time to deliberate on if it had been a fatal hit. You quickly regained your footing, leaving the wounded criminal on the desert floor and reaching for the blaster pistol in your pocket.</p><p>Only to find it missing.</p><p>Worse yet, you were positive the irate swear that followed that discovery was audible enough to alert the fallen criminal’s associate to your presence.</p><p>Your heart was hammering against your chest as your fight-or-flight response triggered, and in a flash, you bent down in the hopes of retrieving the blade from your fallen foe when you heard a plasma bolt whizz by your head, sparking and crumbling sandstone as it landed on the curvature of the hangar’s wall. You slammed your body to the ground, rolling over the corpse and struggling to pull the dead weight over you as a shield for your own body. A deeply uncomfortable wetness soaked your clothes as another plasma bolt pierced the night, gleaming scarlet past you when you spotted your KYD-21 resting on the ground by the limp wrist of your victim. You hurriedly tried to push him off you in order to reach for the pistol, hastily jolting to your immediate right to dive for it as you narrowly avoided another blood-red shot in your direction. Your fingers clasped around the base of the pistol, and you clambered to your knees, eyes meeting your assailant who was gaining rapid ground on you and you wasted no time in aiming –</p><p>And before you could squeeze the trigger, he fell dead right where he stood.</p><p>You heard the unpleasant squelch of steel pulling out of flesh, and your heart plummeted until you saw a tall, lean body emerge from the shadows into the dim amber light, and your heart practically leapt out of your chest.</p><p><em>Rhys</em>.</p><p>Even obscured partially by night, the fatigue in his frame was palpable, the dark circles under his eyes unmistakable. His five o’clock shadow had progressed to a fuller, more unkempt beard, and his clothes were stained with streaks of dirt and dried sand. Meanwhile, your breathing was almost uncontrollably ragged, and the rasping tones noticeably worried him as he bolted to you.</p><p>“Zeya, are you alright? You’re bleeding – ”</p><p>Confused, you peered down and saw your clothes soaked in maroon blood. Even as successful as a pain blocker as adrenaline could be, you were certain you would have felt a wound that resulted in blood loss <em>that </em>extensive. Repulsed, you gingerly pulled at the damp fabric, your stomach turning at the feeling of it almost unwillingly unsticking from your skin.</p><p>“I’m fine,” you elaborated unevenly, face scrunched up at the sight as you continued to attempt to level your breathing. “I think all of this – ” you gestured at your shirt – "belongs to him.” You tossed your hand in the general direction of the assailant in whom you had buried your vibroblade, feeling slightly ill now that you were wearing the results of your maneuver like crimson and grey tie-dye. Rhys sighed heavily, grasping at your shoulders.</p><p>“Zeya...what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into?” You could not decide if it was a rhetorical question or not; his expression was graver than you had ever observed from him, however, and the level to which it unsettled you spurred you to answer.</p><p>“If I’m being honest, I’m still not sure yet,” you said wearily, when the reality had truly sunken in that he had returned and you followed with the stern question, “What happened to ‘I’ll be back in a couple days’?”</p><p>Rhys slumped weightily. “My speeder broke down on the way back,” he replied tiredly. “I’ll have to reimburse Peli the cost of it.” Your face contorted unpleasantly at the thought of striking any kind of bargain with Peli, and you silently said a prayer for him for when that time came. He added, “On the plus side, I acquired the parts you needed for the repairs.”</p><p>“Well, thank goodness we can still look on the bright side of things...” you countered sarcastically, and he stared apologetically at you until suddenly he enveloped you in a tight, earnest embrace. Reluctantly, your arms wrapped around him in kind, and you settled into the warmth of his body more appreciably.</p><p>“I imagine the last few days have been rough on you,” he began slowly, almost confessionally. Then, after a pause, he continued in a tightened voice, “Has your Mandalorian friend returned yet?”</p><p>You were not anticipating how deeply your heart would sink at his mention, but the query had propelled him to the forefront of your mind. If Crimson Dawn had reached you, they had either already attended to the Mandalorian, or were well on their way to confronting him. Though you were duly confident in his abilities, there was a lingering doubt that quietly thrummed at the back of your conscious that you found extremely difficult to ignore the longer the moment stretched.</p><p>“No, he hasn’t,” you finally answered solemnly. You were met with a taut silence, until Rhys pulled you in again closely. The security that accompanied the move could have lulled you into sleep right where you stood, and for the first time in several days, you lacked the stubborn willpower to resist the desire for rest any longer.</p><p>Which was exactly why Rhys’s next words awakened something grotesquely lethal in you.</p><p>“I know you’re tired, and I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now,” he started, pushing you away but still gripping your forearms tenderly. “But Z, I need to get out off this rock, and you’re the only one that can make that happen for me. I’ve been here too long as it is.” You found yourself drawing on the resentment you had previously corked days ago, like water from a well, the unbridled frustration rising in you too fast for your weariness to recapture and contain.</p><p>“What’s keeping you elsewhere?” you inquired, voice gaining an ominous edge. You felt him slightly withdraw from you physically, which only discomforted you further.</p><p>“I needed to make a delivery to the Corporate Sector that’s now several days overdue,” he replied darkly, but the caginess of his body language did not escape your notice. “It’s confidential, I can’t discuss it, but I need to go.” You stared long and hard at him, and he moaned somewhat exasperatedly. “Come on, Zeya.”</p><p>“Don’t beg, Rhys, it doesn’t suit you – ”</p><p>“Zeya, the sooner you fix it, the sooner I can come back and then we can leave – ”</p><p>“’<em>We’?</em>” The noun emboldened you to extricate yourself from Rhys’s hold entirely. “What do you mean by ‘<em>we</em>’ exactly, Rhys?” The level of effort he was putting into unsuccessfully masking his guilt did not escape your notice. You tilted your head as if to silently force the point, and he took another deep breath.</p><p>“After I make my delivery...I planned on coming back for you.”</p><p>The gears turning in your mind had come to a painful, grinding standstill. Everything had gone jarringly blank, but you quickly realized that staring into the rich jade of Rhys’s desperate gaze did you no favors. You brought your palms to your eyes and rubbed aggressively, hoping against hope that doing so possessed the power to unlock some understanding of this situation, but to no avail. Finally, buried with some previously undiscovered ounce of strength, you found your voice again.</p><p>“Rhys, <em>why?</em>”</p><p>“<em>I don’t want to lose you again, alright?” </em>It came out in an exclamatory, unhinged flood of words that caused you to recoil, but it coursed through your veins like cold water all the same and woke your senses. Rhys straightened to his full height, while you remained fixed in position, motionless, too stunned to form words. You were certain that even if you could anyhow, any sentence you managed to string together would yield utter nonsense. His eyelids fluttered closed, until before long the rigidity left his frame and he regarded you with the sincerest look you had ever seen grace his features.</p><p>“You’re all I had on Raydonia, Zeya,” he finally whispered. “If anyone asked me where my family was, you were always the first thing to cross my mind. Raydonia was only ever home to me because you were there.” He reached for your hands, and in your dazed stupor, you let him take them and gently circle the pads of his thumbs over your skin as he looked at you softly. “It’s not nearly safe enough here for you to stay, and I can’t promise a safe haven if you came with me, but I could protect you. I know it’s a big decision, and I don’t expect you to make it right now. But for now, please, Z – I need you to help me out.”</p><p>Your eyes flickered up at him, but you knew you had already made up your mind almost a week ago: you merely exhaled and gave him a one-word affirmation:</p><p>“Fine.”</p><p>His face lit up in the shadows. “I don’t know how to thank you.”</p><p>You heaved another exhausted sigh. “For right now, leaving me the hell alone would be enough,” you rejoined irritably, and you strode out of the hangar to retrieve your tools, with Rhys following doggedly in your wake.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>True to your original word, the installation of the deflector shield generator and rewiring the accompanying components took you a record twenty minutes, speed you had summoned mostly out of an intense yearning to lay down your head and simply let death claim you. After unceremoniously disposing of the bodies of the Crimson Dawn acolytes – he thankfully left the manner in which he did so a secret to you – Rhys made the smart move of staying silent the entire time you worked. Meanwhile, after hearing you rummage through the tool bins in her hangar, Peli came to the docking bay where Rhys’s ship was stored to investigate, and also wisely remained tight-lipped before eventually slinking away quietly. When you materialized from beneath the Corellian freighter, you wiped your hands on a rag and tucked it into the pocket of your vest with finality.</p><p>“Everything’s back in order,” you informed him mechanically. “You can leave anytime now.”</p><p>Rhys slung his bag over his shoulder, reaching for yours and gently gripping a particular tender muscle. “I’ll come back,” he promised, and you scoffed.</p><p>“At least you’re learning not to set a timeline,” you remarked sardonically. He smiled faintly at you before sweeping you up into his arms, and standard reflex commanded your body to stiffen under his attention. You wondered blearily how it was that you and Rhys had traversed such a bewildering arc together since his return, but the emotional tumult the entire ordeal had evoked made your body scream out for sleep with every ache, and you finally acknowledged you could no longer ignore its cries for mercy.</p><p>“I’m serious, Zeya,” Rhys reiterated, his delivery tangibly heartfelt, almost pained as he pulled away reluctantly. “I’ll be back.” He took one last look at you, and even in the faint orange glow of the hangar, the warmth in his emerald eyes was unmistakable, and it made your chest tighten considerably. He then turned and hurriedly ascended the ramp of his ship as you distanced yourself from the vessel, and in a matter of minutes, the drably painted freighter soared high into the air, rear thrusters almost blindingly bright as they bathed the entire bay in an ethereal azure blue. Once the vessel gained enough elevation, it disappeared in an instant, streaking across the midnight black sky in a flash of white, leaving you alone again in the darkness.</p><p>Much like the idea of Rhys returning had practically caused you to malfunction, the thought of leaving Tatooine with him had stalled all thinking. Home had been such a foreign, abstract concept to you for so long that to reacquaint yourself with it felt criminal, like trespassing on someone else’s land. You had deliberately avoided attachment for eight years, purposefully living without allowing the taint of loneliness or loss to destabilize you; with Rhys’s sudden reemergence in your life, as you gradually began to reconcile how empty your life had been in that almost-decade, the more you realized you desperately wanted to run from the revelation.</p><p>You thought you could have collapsed where you stood for how heavy your entire body felt, but you lethargically dragged your feet in the direction of the bay where your ship was stored, using whatever little energy you had left to suppress the oceanic wave of emotion steadily gaining height inside of you. You palmed your forehead in exhaustion, dizzied by the lead ache settled in your muscles such that your senses were completely deadened. When you finally reached the hangar, you turned on the lantern by the doorway and pressed the appropriate button at your wrist to lower the hatch of your vessel. It released with a soft <em>hiss</em>, a sound so soothingly melodic to your wretchedly enervated body that it was enough to coerce your legs to trudge towards the ramp.</p><p>“<em>Zeya!</em>”</p><p>The voice cut the night like a knife, frantic but unfamiliar to your ears. You turned to face the entrance to the bay, and your blood turned cold as you froze.</p><p>While the woman was completely foreign to you, the broad, beskar-armored individual who appeared to be bleeding profusely from one side – and whose weight she was severely struggling to hold up – was startingly recognizable. She had one of his arms limply flung over her neck, and one of hers tucked underneath his other limb, which dangled like a loose thread at his side. Your brain had completely derailed as you paled at the sight of the Mandalorian being dragged along like a ragdoll by the strange woman, who was attired in a black and orange-trimmed tunic, her ebony hair sleekly pulled back in a scarlet-corded, intricately woven braid.</p><p>“What...who...” you choked out, completely disoriented.</p><p>“Help me set him down,” she ordered hurriedly, and adrenaline surged through you as you bolted over to claim the other arm of the Mandalorian. With your combined strength, the two of you managed to gently settle the heavy bounty hunter on the ground against the wall of the hangar.</p><p>“Do you have a medkit?” she asked breathlessly, and without missing a beat, you nodded and dashed back up the ramp of your ship, practically skidding to a halt as you opened a small storage compartment by the side hatch and found the requisite item. You swiftly returned to where the Mandalorian was laying propped up against sandstone with the woman at his side, her face pasty white and beaded with sweat, and you kneeled opposite her alongside him, opening the medkit.</p><p>“What kind of trouble did you manage to get yourself into?” you inquired rhetorically, absently echoing Rhys’s own words from earlier as you attempted to inject a lighter tone into your voice, hoping to sufficiently hide whatever crippling fear lingered beneath the surface. You were marginally relieved to hear a wheezing exhale emerge from the warrior as he shifted his chrome helmet weakly in your direction, and you turned to the woman, searching for some explanation in her hawklike features. “What happened? And no offense, but who the hell are you?”</p><p>“Fennec,” she answered briskly. “We were on the Mesra Plateau when we were ambushed.” Your heart sank like a stone.</p><p>“By whom?” You recognized after that it was pointless to ask – you knew the answer to the question before she supplied it.</p><p>“Crimson Dawn.”</p><p>You clenched your jaw, a fresh wave of fury washing over you, but you shook yourself from the feeling immediately: there was no time to focus what little energy you had on anger. As you reached for the hypospray from the medkit and loaded it with a small vial of bacta, you handed it off to Fennec along with gauze before then peering anxiously at the Mandalorian. The jagged opening of the wound in his side was almost completely obscured from this angle beneath the beskar vest; you knew you would need better access if the bacta was to be of any use.</p><p>“Can I – ”</p><p>“<em>No.</em>”</p><p>It was snarled with such feral intensity that it made you jump.</p><p>“Look, just let me look at it, okay?”</p><p>“Just give me the cauterizer and I’ll take care of it myself,” he groaned out painfully.</p><p>If the optics of slapping a man who was potentially on the precipice of death from blood loss were not nearly as poor as they appeared to you in that moment, your hand would have already made contact.</p><p>You gritted your teeth to fight the urge and tried again, reasserting yourself with a more even tone of voice. “There’s no need for that, I have bacta.”</p><p>“<em>Then dammit, just let me do it </em>– ”</p><p>Without thinking, you grasped his gloved hand gently, and he silenced immediately. His head tilted down curiously at the gesture, but you gazed at him almost desperately. “Let me. Please.” There was a very pregnant pause, during which Fennec looked between the two of you confusedly; then, to your surprise, he weakly clasped your hand, and then his fingers fell limply to allow you access to his wound. You carefully unbuckled the belt resting at his hips, lifting the strap across his shoulder as gingerly as you could over his helmet while raising his arm. You whispered a small apology as you noticed him wince, and next worked to undo the straps of his beskar cuirass underneath his cloak while moving him forward and bracing against him. At this proximity, you could feel the heat radiating off his body, and you drew an anxious breath, catching a warm, robust scent that you thought loosened the many knots in your shoulders.</p><p>You swung the chest plate to the side, grateful for the new exposure to the wound as you could more clearly define the depth and severity of the injury in spite of his undershirt. Knowing you would need to lift it for access, you looked to him for affirmation: your heart stuttered when he reached for your hand again and gently squeezed it with quivering digits. You swallowed thickly as you pulled lightly at the thick, dark grey fabric, torn and stained maroon, absently holding your breath as you did so until it revealed skin –</p><p>Tan, golden-hued skin, lightly freckled and tautly stretched across a defined abdomen. Had you the presence of mind to count, you thought you might have approximated at least six or seven scars already present, all faded and varying in length and texture. You laid your eyes upon the wound, and your heart dropped: it was a deep gash, about ten or so centimeters in length, stretched from the bottom of his rib cage to the top of his hip bone. There had been a significant loss of blood, but as far as you could tell, the assailant’s weapon had narrowly avoided sustaining any internal damage. The uneven split through his skin formed a wretched mouth, from which fresh, scarlet blood still flowed freely; you felt slightly sick appraising it, but you pushed the feeling crawling up your throat back down with a gulp.</p><p>“First things first, I’m going to apply pressure to stymie the flow because you’re still losing a lot of blood, okay?” Your tone was soft as you searched for some acknowledgement, and he shakily nodded. “I can’t promise that it’s going to feel pleasant, but…just try and lean back.” Fennec handed you wadded, bacta-soaked gauze, and you drew in a sharp breath as you pressed it firmly to the wound, his skin warm and flexing immediately under your touch. The errant thought crossed your mind that he had never been touched like this, especially upon reflection of his rabid protest, and an uneasiness settled in the pit of your stomach. You observed the way his abdomen tensed and heard a muffled groan emerge from the helmet, and as you held one hand against the wound with intense pressure, unthinkingly you reached for his clothed bicep and gripped it, rubbing the pad of your thumb across the bulk of it – a silent acknowledgement of his pain, intoned with care and the hope that the sensation might distract him. He responded in kind, his leathered fingertips digging uncomfortably into the meat of your arm as you applied more pressure, but with another gentle swirl of your thumb, his grip reduced in firmness, but he still clung to you. You peered at him apologetically and whispered a quiet assurance as a sudden warmth spread and pulsed through your body: for the first time since you had met him, you finally saw him as flesh and bone and blood, undeniably vulnerable but above all else, <em>human.</em></p><p>“Hold that there for me – ” you directed Fennec, and she traded you the hypospray for his wound as she replaced your hand with both of hers. You retrieved fresh gauze and tape from the kit, then sat back for a moment, legs folded underneath you as you watched the Mandalorian’s chest rise and fall more steadily. Fennec pulled the gauze off, and you were significantly relieved to find the bacta had started taking effect at an almost alarming speed: the wound had almost practically sealed itself, though it was dried with an ugly mix of chalky brown and crimson. You moved back in and used the spray generously, then tightly bandaged the wound with the gauze and secured it with tape. His breathing had quieted and slowed as you pulled his shirt back down, the wetness of the fabric making your stomach twist uncomfortably at the reminder of how much blood he had lost.</p><p>You settled again on your legs as exhaustion rushed through you, steady and strong like the current of a river and crushing like an avalanche. Your arms hung flaccidly at your sides, and you closed your eyes tightly as you exhaled forcefully, when you heard Fennec rise.</p><p>“I’ll retrieve his belongings from the speeder,” she said quietly, and you simply nodded at her. Without another word, she strode almost silently out of the hanger, leaving you alone with a largely immobile bounty hunter slumped against the stone wall. You took his cue and rested alongside him, sighing deeply and letting your head collapse against the cool, hard rock with a dull thud. A moment later, Fennec returned and dropped his equipment at your side – a small mountain of weaponry you realized, including but not limited to his beskar staff, sniper rifle, blaster pistol, and the jagged hilt that always swung on his belt.</p><p>“I’ll keep watch for the night,” she announced firmly. “You both need rest.”</p><p>You drew in another sizable lungful of air and breathed out, “Thank you.” She nodded silently, retrieving the rifle slung behind her, and disappeared from the hangar – to where, you did not know, nor did you particularly care. An eerie, almost disquietingly tranquil silence proceeded to fall over the hangar bay, and it felt wrong. Like you were being lulled into a false sense of security, as your mind began to slowly descend from the high alert status it had attained in the last fifteen or so minutes to a more neutral state. You resigned yourself to the idea that at this point, whatever would be was as it was meant to be: you had no more strength to lend, no more energy to yield that could possibly protect you or the severely weakened Mandalorian resting by your side.</p><p>Almost as soon as you had, you felt soft, leather-clad fingertips find your own, brushing lightly, almost shyly against them. You wondered if the heartbeat that was hammering loudly in your ears was yours or belonged to the quiet, stoic warrior alongside you, whose head was lolled slightly in your direction.</p><p>“…Thank you.”</p><p>You smiled crookedly. “I think the bacta is going to your head,” you teased quietly, but your heart still swelled considerably, punch-drunkenness now taking full hold of you. Nothing had made sense to you for the last few hours – why should this? Without any real acknowledgment of the exchange, both of your fingers continued to occasionally graze and fumble with each other with an earnest, feather-light touch, simply soaking in the coziness of the newfound quiet. It was comfortable, warm and enveloping like an old winter coat: you could have happily wrapped yourself in it and fallen asleep right where you were.</p><p>“...I lost my parents when I was a child.”</p><p>The words doused you like a bucket of cold water. They were spoken painfully, as if he had captured them so many times in his throat before they could leave him and had securely caged them in his heart, but the sentence in its entirety had finally managed to break free. You were too afraid to move, too afraid to say anything at all for fear of saying or doing something irretrievable, so you simply remained frozen. “Our village was invaded, and...a clan of Mandalorians saved me,” he continued, slow and delicate, every word carefully placed like a piece in a puzzle. “They taught me their culture, and they raised me as a foundling. I’ve never known any other way of life, but...I’ve come to learn that ours is not the only way.”</p><p>Something almost powerfully desperate possessed him then as he pulled away to slide up the wall with an audible groan before turning to face you, having released your hand from his; inexplicably, you felt his eyes intensely locked on yours, and in the midst of your paralysis, your chest tightened at the oddly intimidating sensation. You felt your pulse in your fingers, wondering if he had somehow magnetized them such that they implicitly tugged in the direction of his, or if a part of you had suddenly grown that desperate to feel the comfort of his touch again.</p><p>“There are some choices that are made for us,” he began, his tone regaining its evenness, but you sensed his earnest, as if he had finally found an outlet for this untampered emotion but he was still dutifully suppressing its release. Then, unexpectedly, his hand found yours again, satisfying the impatient yearning you felt beating wildly like a drum in your chest. “But we still get to choose how to live with those choices.”</p><p>You sat quietly, weakly attempting to reconcile past with present, give with take, and the oddly unspoken compromise to which you both had just agreed. It was all too overwhelming, but even in your now all-encompassing lethargy, you thought that there was some small, nascent spark you both had just discovered amidst the chaos. Before you had time to ponder this discovery any further, both yours and the Mandalorian’s helmet slumped in unison against each other, and – <em>finally</em> – you drifted off to sleep.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The night sky on Cantonica, diamonded though it was with millions of stars and distant planets, was incomparable to the sparkle of the planet’s prized jewel, Canto Bight. Every evening, it was as if the city was reborn, forming new patterns of glittering light, the setting sun dancing on the reflective sheen of each domed structure at twilight with fresh choreography. The shimmer of the city far below captured the woman’s features wondrously as she gazed far down below, watching starships leave and land in rhythm. For all its simplicity, its peerless monotony, this was a peace she deeply cherished.</p><p>The resounding <em>beep</em> that followed broke it with all the delicacy of steel being compacted.</p><p>Her robes were a dark turquoise, the cascading sleeves trimmed with gold thread and the neckline a defined V. Her long brunette hair flowed down her shoulders and back in a waterfall of loose curls, a stark contrast to the paleness of her skin paired with her crimson painted lips. She was a regal beauty, so meticulously pieced together that the light wrinkles that adorned her face were simply no match for her glowing, eminent elegance. She glided over to the console purposefully and pressed one scarlet-taloned finger to the corresponding button: a static blue hologram hovered in the air in front of her, fuzzy and almost entirely indistinguishable.</p><p>“Your report, Sergeant,” she commanded firmly.</p><p>“The target was mortally wounded, my lady,” the hologram replied, voice graveled by the intermittent connection.</p><p>“Do we have a confirmed fatality?” the Countess inquired brusquely. The question was met with a deafening silence.</p><p>“...No, my lady.”</p><p>“Did you acquire the weapon?”</p><p>Another stony quiet followed.</p><p>“Inform your commanding officer that I wish to see him as soon as he makes his return to Canto Bight.”</p><p>The acerbity of her tone made the sergeant swallow thickly, an action detectable even over the hologram. “As you wish, my lady,” he acknowledged nervously.</p><p>The hologram faded to nothingness, leaving a void that had also regrettably consumed the serenity of the evening.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Guys it has been a MONTH, in so many more ways than just one lol. I'm so so sorry this took so long to get to y'all, but I REALLY hope this chapter was worth the wait - I finally got my writing groove back earlier this week and I've been working on this practically nonstop the last few days. Thank you SO MUCH to my beta, determinedkorra who is the absolute best for giving me solid feedback on this chapter, I could not have finished it without you lol. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and I promise the wait won't be as long for chapter 6!!!</p>
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